Air Awakens

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters and events in this book are the products of the author’s imagination
or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Published by Silver Wing Press
Copyright © 2015 by Elise Kova

All rights reserved. Neither this book, nor any parts within it may be sold or reproduced in any form without permission.

Cover Artwork by Merilliza Chan
Editing by Monica Wanat

ISBN (paperback): 9781932549935
ISBN (hardcover): 9781932549928

eISBN: 9781932549942

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015941847

Printed in the United States of America

This book is for ...

Alicia Davis, Kiri, Kay, IridescentSoul, Elanor Crumwell, RomanceObsessed,
DarlingFaye, PowerMadGirl, yesiamhuman, queencarrot, Prodigee123, doc2or, Seriah
Black Sheep, Your Loyal Bookworm, shinju asuka, puffgirl1952, musicboxmetaphor,
shari, bfl2ma, Valerie, XtremeAngell, Mirirowan, Rebecca, prathyu, Alyss20, TwiinzRJ,

Vyra Finn, Ozymandeos, Lady Altrariel, Ulsindhe, gizem524, musicalfishieXD,
devonamorgan, blueeyesbrightsmile, Estheranian, Michelle Fang, Rizzy, Tessa, Sekhra,
JustAnotherGal, Ashley, Izzy, Blanket Baby, hopewriteinspire, rosewood, appleeater1313,

Wonderlander, A fan, Mizz Dustkeeper, lalalaughter101, LazyFakeName,
carmensimagination, avery, avid reader, Mousey, Emmie, FreakinMarisa, Death’s Sweet

Kiss, Kaf, Sephirium

... and everyone else who was with and supported me from the start. Without you, there
would be no story.

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29

SUMMER STORMS WERE common in the capital and Vhalla Yarl had endured their visits in the
seven years since she had moved from the East. But lightning and thunder were
never welcome guests.

The burst of light through the shutter slats hadn’t set her heart to racing tonight; it
was the solemn, low cry of a horn resonating off every post in the city that slowed her
world with each reverberation. The noise faded before resounding once more.

Vhalla jumped to her feet, rushing to the small archer’s slit that served as her window.
Unlatching the shutter proved to be a poor idea as the wind grabbed it, slamming it
against the palace stone so hard that she thought it would rip from its hinges. The shutter
was quickly forgotten as horns echoed their call on the palace wall below, and Vhalla
blinked into the howling wind.

Horns could only mean one thing.
Her dark brown eyes—flecked with gold—fixed on the Imperial Gate far below as it
opened to allow a military party to race inside. Leaning out as far as she could, Vhalla
ignored the rain splattering her cheeks, straining to make out the shifting shadows of
soldiers home from the front.
Had they won? Was the war against Shaldan over?
Vhalla’s heart beat harder. Through the intermittent flashes of lightning she only
made out twenty horsemen.
Victory rode through the city in full force with sunlit pennons fluttering in the wind.
Victory waited until better weather for their parades. Something was wrong. This was a
messenger party, a delivery, an escort, a—
Vhalla’s mind went blank.
Palace servants rushed to meet the party and, by the flickering light of their torches,
Vhalla was able to make out people. An Imperial White cape draped the haunch of a
horse.
A prince had returned.
The servants helped the slumped royal from his saddle, pulling off the limp and
sluggish body. She couldn’t hear the words shouted over the storm, but they seemed
frantic and angry. Vhalla stood on her tiptoes, doubled at the waist and drenched halfway
down her back, craning out the window until the injured man was carried away. Pulling
herself from the rain, she closed her shutter and ignored the small puddle around her
feet. One of the princes was injured, but which one?
Endless cerulean eyes filled her mind. Prince Baldair, the second son, had stopped into
the library right before returning to war. Vhalla had never met a member of the Imperial
Family before, but all the tales told about the Heartbreaker Prince had been true.
She gripped the front of her sleeping shift and forced herself to breathe deeply. The
prince didn’t even know who she was, Vhalla reminded herself. He had certainly forgotten
the library apprentice whom he had caught mid-air as she had clumsily slipped from one
of the bookcases’ towering rolling ladders.

Now palace clerics were called, servants were woken to fetch blankets and stoke fires,
apprentices of the healing arts would work all night, and all she could do was stand in
silence.

Vhalla pushed away slick strands of dark hair sticking to her face. Roan was right, she
was foolish for ever thinking of the Heartbreaker Prince. Vhalla was not the type of girl
Prince Baldair would be interested in, she was far too plain.

The door slammed open. A petite blonde with ringlet curls stood breathless in the door
frame. Vhalla blinked at the woman, a woman Vhalla seemed to have summon with her
passing thought.

“Vhalla...library. Now,” Roan panted. It was like she spoke another language, and
Vhalla’s body failed to oblige the command. “Vhalla, now!” Grabbing her wrist, Roan
pulled her down the dimly lit halls, giving Vhalla no time to even dress properly.

“Roan. Roan! What’s going on?” Vhalla demanded as they rounded a tight corner.
“I don’t know much. Master Mohned will explain,” Roan replied.
“Is it the prince?” Vhalla blurted.
Her friend paused, turning. “You still have the Heartbreaker Prince on your mind? It’s
been—what, two months?” Blue eyes, slightly darker than the prince’s, rolled at Vhalla.
“It’s not that. I—” she struggled, a hot flush rushing to her head.
“And why are you all wet?” Roan blinked, assessing her friend for the first time. Before
Vhalla could answer, they were winding through the narrow servants’ passages again. “It
doesn’t matter; just don’t get water on the books.”
The Imperial Library was housed within the palace, a part of the mountainside capital
city of the Solaris Empire. Gold-gilded, cherry wood bookcases, which stood taller than
four men perched upon each other’s shoulders, housed the vast knowledge of the Empire.
Stained glass ran along the vaulted ceiling and, during normal sunny days, cast a
kaleidoscope of color upon the floor.
Now, however, the library was swathed in darkness. Each apprentice stood by a candle
at the central circulation desk in various stages of dress.
Her eyes passed over the motherly Lidia and briefly landed on the girl Cadance before
falling on Sareem. Vhalla stared at his olive skin, a richer hue than hers, on display
without a shirt. He was surprisingly toned, and Vhalla struggled to remember when her
childhood friend had become a man. Sareem’s eyes caught hers, and he seemed almost
startled. Vhalla quickly looked away.
“We need every book on the magic and poisons of the Northern Sky Citadels of
Shaldan. Bring them here. We shall read through them and take notes on what may be
useful before forwarding them to the clerics.” Master Mohned spoke as guards began to
light more candles throughout the library. He looked every year of his ancient age, his
long white beard unruly like the spindly roots of a tiny plant. Noticing they all stood,
mouths catching flies with shock, he snapped, “This is an Imperial Order! Go!”
Vhalla took a running start at a rolling ladder, using momentum to glide the length of
a bookshelf. Her eyes scanned the titles, and her hungry hands plucked books. With three
manuscripts cradled in her arms, she sprinted back to the central desk, depositing them
on the floor before repeating the process.

The piles grew and sweat dotted Vhalla’s brow. The master often scolded her for
reading during work, but seven years of disobedience had burned a large list of titles into
her mind. Book titles appeared before her eyes faster than her feet could carry her to
them.

When the third stack of bound parchment stood taller than her, Vhalla noticed the
other apprentices had stopped searching and claimed places on the floor to begin
confirming the contents of each manuscript. She placed a palm over the stitch in her side.
Their piles were so small. She could think of five tomes in potions alone that Sareem had
missed.

The prince occupied her mind as she retrieved more books, his face in the forefront of
her thoughts. His injuries must be serious if the clerics needed research beyond their
common knowledge. Vhalla bit her lip, staring at her towers of books before the desk.
What was wrong with him?

“Vhalla.”
She missed the master’s weathered voice while running through more titles in her
head. There was one missing, there had to be. Was it in mysteries?
“Vhalla.”
The prince’s life could slip between their fingers due to missing only one line of text.
Vhalla ran the back of her hand over her forehead, sweat or water rolled down her neck.
“Vhalla!”
“What?” she replied sharply, staring at Mohned. Vhalla instantly realized her
disrespectful tone.
The master let it slide. “That’s enough; we have enough. Help us research, write down
anything you find of use.”
Master Mohned motioned to the floor, and Vhalla took her place between Roan and
Sareem. The library staff ignored all rules and decorum as they grabbed from a communal
pile of quills, ink pots, and parchment in the middle of their circle.
Vhalla pulled the first book into her lap. “Master.” She raised her head, turning away
from the pages sandwiched between her trembling fingers. The sage looked at her
through his spectacles. “Who’s sick?”
“The prince.”
Those two words were all the master needed to speak for Vhalla’s throat to feel drier
than the Western Waste. She wished she had been wrong.
He was in the palace, somewhere beyond her reach. He needed help, and she was no
one. Vhalla was barely above the servants who swept the halls and mucked the toilets as
punishment for petty crimes. But maybe her years of reading could pay off and she could
actually do something.
Vhalla grabbed another piece of parchment. Her quill roughly marred its blank surface
with streaks of ink. This was all she could do. It was all she was ever good at. She could
read and perhaps pass on some knowledge to a cleric who would save a man she hardly
even knew.
Snapping a quill, Vhalla cursed and threw the broken tool aside before reaching for
another. Sareem shot a curious look towards her, but the brown-haired girl was a world

away. The more Vhalla wrote, the calmer she felt. The pen was like an extension of her
being and she forged the ink to her will as if she were under the spell of the words.

Slowly, the books began to grow in a new stack. Each had a note behind the cover,
listing information she had found that she thought may be helpful. Vhalla hardly noticed
her vertical workload diminishing as soldiers began to carry books out armfuls at a time.
She also did not turn to say goodbye as her friends wearily departed throughout the night.

Though her energy was fading, the more books that left the room, the more she was
compelled to read. Gradually, warmth budded within her. Slowly at first, then growing
with each passing hour until it flourished into a blazing heat.

The sound of the last book closing woke her from her trance. Vhalla blinked at her
empty ink-stained hands. In the sunlight, she turned her eyes toward the heavens, and
she stared tiredly at the magnificent rainbow of colored glass that ran the length of the
ceiling. Dawn had arrived, and she could not even remember the night. Two hands
clasped themselves tightly around her swaying shoulders.

Blinking the haze from her eyes, Vhalla looked at the man who appeared suddenly
before her. An unfamiliar face stared back. He was a Southern man with icy blue eyes,
goatee, and short blonde hair. While he wasn’t menacing, she was certain that he was no
one she had ever seen.

“This is the one?” He spoke to someone else, though his eyes were fixed on her.
“It is, minister,” another unfamiliar voice replied.
“Thank you. You are dismissed,” the Southern man ordered. Footsteps faded away
with the sound of clinking armor.
“Who are you?” Vhalla’s tongue found life again, the daze of feverish heat fading. She
tried to make sense of who this man was and why he was touching her. Her eyes settled
upon a crisp black jacket. It contrasted starkly to the morning light. No one in the palace
wore black.
She felt dizzy. Almost no one wore black. “Wait, you’re a—”
“No questions here.” A large hand, clammy and cold, clasped over her mouth. “Don’t
be afraid; I’m here to help you. But you need to come with me.”
Vhalla looked up at the man with wide eyes. She breathed sharply through her nose
and shook her head in protest against the silencing palm.
“I must speak with you privately, but the Master of Tome will return soon. So, come
with me.” He slowly peeled his hand from her face.
“No.” She almost fell backwards. “I won’t go with you! You shouldn’t be here, I won’t
go there.” Her mind was jumbled from panic heightened by the night’s exertion.
The man grabbed her once more with an annoyed look and a glance over his shoulder.
Vhalla opened her mouth to call out for help, but all she inhaled was a strong herbal
scent from the cloth that was suddenly pressed against her face. Right before she lost her
struggle with consciousness, Vhalla saw the symbol embroidered on the man’s jacket as
he leaned forward to pick her up. Stitched over his left breast was a silver moon with a
dragon curling around its center; split in two, each half was off-set from the other. She
had never seen it with her own eyes, but she knew what that ominous image meant: a
sorcerer.

IT FELT AS though someone had taken an axe to the back of her head, split it open, and
allowed her brain to leak out upon the unfamiliar pillow. Vhalla groaned and cracked
her eyes. Her face felt hot, and not from the sunlight that streamed through—in Vhalla’s
opinion—an enormous window.

The previous day came back to her in a rush. She sat and grabbed her temples as a
chill raced through her. The prince’s return, finding every book she could think of,
practically passing out while reading, and the man and his strange black jacket—it all
came back with sickening speed.

Vhalla looked around the room cautiously, as though a specter may lurk in any
shadow. The walls were the palace’s stonework, fitted and mortared. A decorative edge
ran around the top of the room, unlike her own unadorned chambers. Sculpted dragons
danced around moons.

Her eyes finally settled upon a small glass jar hanging from an iron hook bolted into
the wall. Flickering within was a tongue of fire. There was no oil or wax to fuel it, no
source for the flame. It simply hovered within its container.

She scrambled to her feet, bolting for the door. Her hands closed around the metal
handle, and she tugged vigorously. The sound of iron on iron filled the room as the lock
engaged and the door refused to budge. It was louder than the panicked scream stuck in
her throat. The memory of the black-coated man flashed before her eyes; Vhalla blinked it
away.

Taking a step back from the locked door, she frantically looked around the room.
There was a bed, a small table, and a chamber pot. She ran to the window, throwing open
the glass and looking downward. It was a dizzyingly straight drop to the ground far below.

The sound of the door latch disengaging brought her attention back within the room,
and Vhalla plastered herself against the far wall. A sorcerer had taken her, and she did not
want to believe where. The door swung open and a vaguely familiar pair of icy eyes met
hers.

“Good to see you’re awake,” the man smiled cordially. “How do you feel?”
“Who are you?” Vhalla plastered herself to the wall, so close that it would be
impossible to fit even a piece of parchment between her back and the stone. She eyed the
man warily. He wore different clothes today; long robes atop a tunic and trousers. Over
his left breast was a patch that reaffirmed her panic: a black swatch with a broken moon.
“Do not be afraid.” The man raised his hands unthreateningly. “No one will hurt you.”
“Who are you?” Vhalla repeated. She knew by his floor-length robes and belled sleeves
that the man was of higher rank than her, as almost everyone in the palace was. Vhalla
struggled to keep her voice as calm and respectful as possible. She failed.
“Wouldn’t you like to sit down?” He continued to ignore her question.
“I’d like to know who you are,” Vhalla repeated slowly, her eyes glued to his left breast.
A nail chipped as she dug her fingers into the stone. “Why did you take me?”
“My name is Victor Anzbel,” the man finally revealed with a small sigh. “I am the

Minister of Sorcery, and you are in the Tower of Sorcerers. I took you because I need to
speak with you, and doing so upon the library floor was not an option. Forgive me, but it
was already dawn, and we didn’t have time for relaxed introductions there.”

“Wh-what could you possibly need to speak with me about?” Vhalla stuttered, leaning
against the wall for a wholly different reason. She was in the Tower of Sorcerers speaking
to the Minister of Sorcery. She must be dreaming.

“Please, come.” He motioned to the door. “I do not wish to discuss this across a room.”
Without waiting for her response the man walked away, leaving the door open behind
him. Vhalla heard his boots upon the stone floor in the unknown beyond. She didn’t want
to leave her wall. Her wall was safe and stable.
Sorcerers were odd, they were dangerous; they kept to themselves and left normal
people alone. That was why they had their own Tower, so they kept out of sight and mind.
Everyone in the South had always told her so. It was the last place she belonged.
“Would you like black or herbal tea?” the minister called nonchalantly from the other
room.
Vhalla swallowed. Perhaps if she stayed still long enough she could become part of the
wall and vanish from the world.
“I have cream and sugar also.”
Vhalla weighed her options, ignoring the odd fact that he actually had cream and sugar
at his disposal and would offer some to someone like her. There were two ways out: the
window or the door. The former involved a long fall to certain death. The later involved
facing the sorcerer who had kidnapped her. She didn’t like either of her options.
Vhalla inched forward toward the open door, wringing her hands into the sleeping
gown she still wore. She didn’t care if it was against Southern fashions, she’d give
anything for a pair of trousers.
The minister was busy at a far counter in the connected room. A kettle sat over
another unnatural flame as the man fumbled with jars of dried herbs and mugs. It was a
workroom of sorts with a table, more beds, and bandages. Vhalla recognized some clerical
salves and her eyes fell on a row of knives. Was she to be part of some living experiment?
“Ah, there you are. Please, take a seat.” The man half turned, motioning to the table.
His eyes held a youthful spark that Vhalla was unaccustomed to. She had always thought
palace officials were ancient, like Master Mohned, but this man couldn’t be more than ten
years her senior.
Vhalla slunk along the far wall, careful not to bump into anything. She almost jumped
out of her skin when her feet fell on something soft. Nothing more than a rug accounted
for the plushness beneath her. Vhalla blinked at it. It was far nicer than what decorated
the library. She curled her toes into the soft fibers.
“So then, black or herbal tea?” the man persisted, as though nothing about their
situation was strange in the slightest. His hand hovered over the kettle, one mug already
steaming.
“Neither.” Vhalla had not forgotten the cloth he used to make her unconscious.
“Are you hungry, perhaps some food?” He accepted her refusal with grace, but left an
empty mug on the countertop where he worked.

“No.” Vhalla studied him carefully as he sat in the chair opposite her. The minister
curled his fingers around his mug with an annoyingly relaxed little smile.

“If you change your mind you only have to say the word,” he offered.
Vhalla’s throat felt too gummy to do little more than nod. Tea would be nice, but the
Mother Goddess in all her shining glory would cease to rise for dawn before she accepted
anything from this man.
“What’s your name?”
Vhalla bit her lower lip, torn between respecting the official sitting before her and the
fear that threatened to set her balled hands to shaking. He could easily find out her name,
she reasoned. Though forcing it between her lips was harder than confessing her darkest
secret. “Vhalla,” she answered. Perhaps if she obliged him he would let her go. “Vhalla
Yarl.”
“Vhalla, it is a pleasure to meet you.” He smiled over his tea.
She tried to keep her face blank, something she was never really good at.
“I know you have many questions, so I will try to explain things as simply as possible.
First, allow me to commend you on your efforts on our prince’s behalf.”
Vhalla nodded mutely. The library seemed like a different world. The only reminder
that it was real was her clothing and the fever heat still radiating throughout her body.
“Last night, I was summoned by the clerics to inspect the prince’s magical Channels,”
he continued. “As a Waterrunner, they needed my knowledge.”
“Prince Baldair doesn’t have magic,” Vhalla interrupted. She didn’t understand the
strange squint to his eyes.
The minister stroked his goatee, sitting back in his chair. “Prince Baldair is still at the
front,” he said finally.
Vhalla could not stop her mouth from falling open. If Prince Baldair wasn’t in the
palace then that meant the prince she saved was...
“It’s Prince Aldrik?” Every servant’s whisper and mean spirited-word about the
snobbish heir to the throne echoed in her ears. That was the man she had struggled all
night for?
“It is,” the minister chuckled, amused by her confusion and shock. Vhalla shut her
mouth quickly. “While I was examining him, there was something peculiar about a
certain set of notes tucked under some of the books’ covers. Once the prince was stable, I
had time to properly inspect them. They were crafted by a magical hand,” Minister Victor
explained, leaning forward. “Imagine my surprise when they were not from any of the
Tower apprentices conducting similar research on our prince’s behalf, but from the
library.”
“That’s impossible.” Vhalla shook her head.
“When a sorcerer makes something, trace amounts of magic might be left behind,” the
minister elaborated. “Especially when that sorcerer is not yet properly Awoken and their
power Manifests itself in unexpected ways.”
“I don’t understand.” Vhalla wanted to go home. She needed this man to say whatever
it was he wanted to and then let her go back to her library. Work had already begun for
the day, and she was late.

“Vhalla, you are a sorcerer,” the minister finally said outright.
“What?” The world ground to a halt, and the silence weighed upon her shoulders.
A memory flashed before her eyes, a young girl standing before a farmhouse, begging
for her father to stay. But he had to go; the Empire had called for soldiers to fight the
magic taint that was seeping into the world from the Crystal Caverns. Vhalla remembered
her father leaving.
“What?” her voice was sharper, stronger. She was on her feet. “No, you have the wrong
person, the wrong books. My notes must have gotten mixed up with someone else’s. I’m
not a sorcerer. My father was a farmer, my mother’s parents worked in the post office of
Hastan. None of us are—”
“Magic is not in the blood,” the minister interrupted her hasty words. “Two sorcerers
can give birth to a Commons,” explained, discussing those with and without magic. “Two
Commons can give birth to a sorcerer. Magic chooses us.”
“I’m sorry.” Vhalla was laughing as though the world was one giant joke and she was
the punchline. “I am not a sorcerer.” She started for the door despite not knowing where
it led. Her logical facilities weren’t quite functioning. She just wanted out.
“You cannot run from this.” The minister stood as well. “Vhalla, your powers have
begun to Manifest. You are older than the normal age of such Manifestations, but it is
happening.” He blinked a few times. “Even now, I can see traces of magic woven around
you.”
She stopped, halfway between the minister and the door, and wrung her hands. Just
because he claimed to see it did not mean it was there. He might be lying, Vhalla insisted
to herself. Could she trust the word of a man who abducted her?
“Your magic will continue to grow. Nothing will stop it, and eventually you will be
Awoken to your powers in full. It will be either at the hands of another sorcerer, guiding
you, or your powers will simply unleash themselves.” The minister’s tone held no levity.
But the lack of jest made it no easier to believe.
“What could happen?” The nervous energy within her sought an outlet. Her whole
body trembled as she waited for the answer.
“I don’t know.” Minister Victor reached for his mug of caramel-colored liquid, taking a
long and thoughtful sip. “If you are a Firebearer, perhaps you light a candle with a glance.
Or you could set the entire Imperial Library ablaze.”
Vhalla nearly lost her balance and collapsed, the words knocking the wind from her.
She shook her head, as if she could cast reality away.
“I want to go home,” she finally breathed.
“I am sorry, Vhalla, but you should stay—”
“I want to go home!” Vhalla’s cry interrupted him. Through burning eyes she glared at
a man to whom she should show respect and subservience.
He let her catch her breath before he spoke. “Very well,” Minister Victor said with a
soft and thoughtful voice.
“Really?” Vhalla’s fingers relaxed, her fingernails leaving crescent moons in her palms.
“I can see this is a decision that will not benefit from force.” He held up both hands in
a sign of surrender. “Usually when I bring a budding sorcerer into the Tower, they come

around. I had hopes that I would be able to show—”
“I don’t want to see it!” Vhalla nearly shouted. Her hand went to her mouth, as if to

catch back the rough and rude words.
“Perhaps, some other time.” The minister smiled.
As he led her out the door, Vhalla’s eyes remained on her feet. The hall was a sloping

downward spiral with doors at random intervals on either side. There were no windows,
and she presumed the light to be from more of the unnatural flames that she had seen in
the previous rooms.

Vhalla did not want to look at any of it. She didn’t want to take anything away from
this place, not even a memory. She didn’t want to have anything in common with the
strange Tower people who currently gave her and the minister a wide girth. Biting her lip,
Vhalla choked back a sob. She was tired, and she did not have the energy for this
sorcerer’s lies. He was mistaken, and when she returned to the real world she would
never have to think of this place again. Bringing her hands together she fidgeted with her
fingers.

Yet, despite her mental and emotional withdrawal, Vhalla did see. She saw the endless
rugs of dazzling patterns that lined this hall. Where one rug ended, the next began; her
feet never even touched stone. She saw the start of ornamentation upon the walls,
sculptures embellished with iron and silver, forming shapes she stubbornly would not
permit herself to look upon. Vhalla saw the feet of those who passed, boots and polished
shoes. Why did sorcerers have such nice things when the slippers she owned were almost
worn to holes? When her windows were archer’s slits and her halls were barren, cracked,
and roughhewn?

The minister wordlessly led her down a side hall. The stones began to shift into shapes
and colors she was more familiar with, the lighting dimmer. Vhalla looked up finally as
they stopped. Before them was a narrow, pointed dead end.

“Minister?” Panic blossomed in her anew.
“The Tower lives and dies by the moon, by the Father who keeps the realms of chaos
at bay and guards the celestial gateway in the heavens above,” he informed her cryptically.
“When you have calmed down, I know you will come find us again. Most Manifesting
sorcerers do when they think logically.”
“Will you take me by force again if I don’t?” Vhalla took a half step away, strongly
doubting she would ever seek out this man and his Tower by choice.
“My apologies for that.” The minister had a glint in his eyes of what she almost
believed to be sincerity. “I didn’t see any other way to speak privately with you. I thought
if you were in the Tower you would be willing to see what it held for you.”
“I would have listened...” Vhalla looked away in annoyance. She wasn’t sure which
frustrated her more: his actions or the fact that he was right about her not being willing to
mingle with sorcerers.
“Very well, I will see you soon I’m certain,” he said lightly; little seemed to bother
Victor Anzbel. Vhalla wondered how many times he had performed this same dance with
another.
The minister held out a hand, motioning toward the dead end. Vhalla blinked at him,

but he said nothing else. She stepped forward hesitantly. Reaching out a palm she
expected to push some form of hidden door. Her fingers vanished right into the stone.

Vhalla gasped and she looked back to the minister for explanation, but he was gone.
She barely suppressed a shiver before plunging herself into the magic wall.

Emerging on the other side, Vhalla instantly recognized her location. The stone behind
her looked the same as at it had every day as she’d passed it growing up. Squinting, Vhalla
noticed something she never had before—a circle, cut in two, its halves offset from the
other—the broken moon of the Tower. How had she missed it all these years?

Timidly, she reached a hand back, and it vanished back into the false wall. A spark of
curiosity blossomed within her. What magic could do this?

Vhalla quickly put the thought from her mind. Too curious for her own good, the
master had always scolded. Magic was dangerous. She reiterated the hushed words she
had always heard on Southerner’s tongues: magic was risky and strange.

She shook her head and headed for the library as fast as her feet would carry her.

IT WAS FAR easier to feign normalcy when she was in her drab apprentice robes being
scolded by the master for arriving almost four hours late for her duties. His words
were restrained and her punishment was nothing more than being reprimanded in front
of Roan, who sat at the desk transcribing. The other girl looked at Vhalla with curiosity; a
glint in Roan’s eye revealing she didn’t buy Vhalla’s excuse of oversleeping. The master
did give it heed, however, after the prior night’s excitement.

The master assigned Vhalla the most boring task there was in the library:
alphabetization. Most of the staff resented the chore, but Vhalla found the dance of her
fingers along the spines therapeutic. This was her world of safety and consistency.

“Vhalla,” a voice whispered from the end of the aisle. Sareem glanced up and down the
intersection where the shelves met. He motioned for her to follow, and she was down the
ladder without a second thought, winding though bookshelves behind him toward the
outer wall.

“What is it, Sareem?” Vhalla asked softly as they reached her window seat.
“Are you feeling well?” he asked, motioning for her to sit at his side.
“I’m fine.” She could not meet his eyes as she sat. How could she sum up the
unorthodox events of her day?
“You’re lying,” Sareem scolded. “You’re a bad liar, Vhalla.”
“It was a long night. I’m tired,” she mumbled. That much was true.
“It’s not like you to be late. I was worried.” He frowned.
“Sorry to worry you,” Vhalla apologized.
She had known Sareem for almost five years. He had started his apprenticeship only
two years after her and they have been fast friends. Certainly she could trust him.
“Sareem, do you know any sorcerers?”
“What?” He leaned away, as though she had made some kind of threat. “Why would I
associate with sorcerers?”
“I know your father is from Norin. I hear magic is more accepted in the West. I
thought that maybe...” What began as a rushed excuse quickly lost its momentum.
“No,” Sareem shook his head. “I don’t know any sorcerers, and I don’t plan to.”
“Right,” Vhalla agreed half-heartedly. She felt cold.
“What book is your head in now?” Sareem tapped her chin with his knuckles, bringing
her eyes back to his. Vhalla attempted to make up some explanation but he wasn’t about
to allow it. “I know you, Miss Yarl.” Sareem wore a satisfied smirk. “Read all you want,
fine. I can’t judge you for it, not after it likely saved the prince. But don’t go seeking out
sorcerers, all right?”
Vhalla couldn’t stand his caring gaze.
“They’re dangerous, Vhalla. Look at our crown prince. His mood is tainted by his
flames, or so they say.” Sareem rested a palm on her head, holding it there for a long
moment. “Vhalla, you’re warm.”
“What?” She blinked, fretting that somehow he felt the magic within her.

“You’re fevered.” Sareem’s hand had shifted to her forehead. “You shouldn’t be here.
We should go tell the master.”

“I feel fine.” Vhalla shook her head.
“No, if you strain yourself it will only get worse. Autumn Fever will be upon us before
we know it, and you should keep your strength.” He was helping her up when she caught
movement on the edge of her vision.
Vhalla’s eyes shifted. At the far end of the shelves stood a figure shadowed between
the beams of light cutting through the dust from windows. Her heart began to race. A
black jacket covered their shoulders, the hem ending at the bottom of their ribs, and
sleeves stopping just below their elbows. She couldn’t suppress a fearful chirp.
“Vhalla, what is it?” Sareem regained her attention, and by the time he turned to
follow her wide-eyed stare, the person was gone.
“N-nothing.” Vhalla struggled to keep her voice stable.
Sareem helped her back to the main desk, where he was in turn scolded for not
working. Her friend disappeared back into the stacks with a small grin in Vhalla’s
direction. The master affirmed Sareem’s claims by placing a wrinkled palm on her
forehead. With father-like worry he sent her back to her chambers early to rest.
Alone outside the library, Vhalla quickly found the statue that was spaced far enough
from the wall to allow someone to side-step behind—and disappeared. Vhalla knew every
crack in the walls, every uneven stone beneath her feet, and every servant passageway.
She had been walking this route for almost seven years since her father traded an
opportunity to advance from foot soldier in the militia to palace guard after the War of
the Crystal Caverns; a trade he had made to see that his daughter had a better future than
a farm in Cyven, the East.
Her hand paused upon her door handle; footsteps at the far end of the hall called her
attention. A group of servants and apprentices passed along one of the passageways’
crossroads. She squinted past them, further down still. A pair of eyes stared back at her.
Vhalla disappeared quickly into her room, throwing herself upon her bed. Sleep would not
have come so quickly were it not for the exhaustion that seeped from her very bones.
Her sleep was restless and filled with a vivid dream.

She dreamt she felt the night air upon her skin as she stood before the palace-side
library doors. Torches flanked them, their carved surfaces set shadows dancing in
unnatural ways. Through the crack between the doors she felt the cool, musty air
of the library beyond, like the breath of a sleeping beast.

The doors did not obstruct her; like the fake wall in the Tower, they allowed her to
pass through with ease. Vhalla soon found herself in the moonlit library. She
turned, starting for her window seat. Her heartbeat fluttered faster than a
hummingbird’s wings. There, she had to go there.

The world began to blur, the bookcases fading into a haze. Everything slipped
around her as she raced toward her destination. Upon her favorite perch sat the
hunched figure of a man. Hazy and shadowed, she could not make out his

features and, when he finally turned, the movement was pained. Surprise tensed
his shoulders, and Vhalla could only make out a pair of dark eyes set upon a
blurry face, struggling to focus on her much as she was struggling to focus on
him.

“Who are you?” The man’s words were as deep and dark as midnight. They
resonated directly into Vhalla’s core, and it fractured the faded world around her.

Wait, Vhalla cried. Wait! Only air passed through her lips. Everything
surrounding her lost its sharpness and began to crumble beneath her feet. She fell
into darkness.

Vhalla awoke with a start, her covers upon the floor from thrashing about in her sleep.
She pressed a palm to her forehead. Her skin wasn’t fevered, but it was clammy from
night sweats.

It was a dream, she insisted while readying herself for the day. But nothing seemed to
be able to calm the nerves upsetting her stomach, not even the familiar scratch of her
rough spun woolen clothing. She had worn the same clothes for years, though Vhalla was
suddenly tugging at her robe’s sleeves uncomfortably.

She had a similar dream the next night, and the night after that, each time more vivid
than the last. She ignored the shakes the dreams left in their wake. Vhalla blamed it on
the black-clad figures who seemed to stalk her every movement—just beyond the edge of
her vision. She did not go a day without seeing a sorcerer swathed in black, but only out of
the corners of her eyes.

They stood at the edge of a bookshelf, the junction of a hall; sometimes they passed
through doors that would be locked when she tried the knob. No one else ever saw them.
Not Roan, who sorted books with her. Not Sareem when he walked her back to her room
after dinner, meals that sat too heavy in her stomach.

The feel of eyes upon her became as common as breathing. What they wanted from
her—they did not say. What they were waiting for they did not reveal.

Vhalla ignored her suspicion that she already knew what they sought.
One day, she was working alone in the library when the hairs at the nape of her neck
raised on end.
At the end of the row stood a woman. She wore a variation of the Tower’s apprentice
robes that Vhalla had only seen once or twice before. The black jacket still ended at her
waist, but the sleeves were capped over the shoulders. Vhalla could not guess the
significance of having different styled robes. Library apprentices all wore the same.
The woman did not move, she did not even seem to breathe. Dark brown eyes, almost
black, were set upon deep tan Western skin. Black hair fell straight around her face with
horizontal fringe cut right below the woman’s brow. Her hair was longer in the front and
shorter in the back, exposing her neck.
It was the first time Vhalla had seen one of her watchers long enough to examine their
appearance. She didn’t know what she had been expecting, but the woman looked like any
other Westerner. Wasn’t she always told that sorcerers were different from normal

people?
“What do you want?” Vhalla whispered. Her eyes watered, she did not even allow

herself to blink for fear the woman would vanish.
“Have you ever read any of these?” The woman had a thick accent, holding her a and y

like those of the West. Vhalla had heard traces of it in Sareem, even though he had been
born and raised in the South.

“These?” Vhalla repeated carefully.
“These books,” the woman clarified. “Have you ever read any of them?”
“Of course I have,” Vhalla retorted defensively. People did not often question her
knowledge of the library, especially when it came to her reading.
“And you still fear us?” The woman squinted slightly, tilting her head.
Vhalla subconsciously took a step away. “I-I don’t fear—” the woman’s approach stilled
her words. What would this person do to her? Vhalla looked over her shoulder to make
sure Sareem or Roan weren’t nearby. She jumped when she looked back—the sorcerer
stood right before her.
“This one.” Pulling a manuscript from the shelf the woman passed it to her. “Read
this.”
“Why?” Vhalla accepted the manuscript from the woman with hesitant fingers. She
read the title quickly: An Introduction to Sorcery.
“Because you are too smart to be so afraid of what you are,” the dark-haired woman
replied simply, turning to walk away.
Vhalla blinked, reeling from the strange interaction. “Wait,” she called a little too
loudly. “What’s your name?”
The woman stopped. Vhalla clutched the book with white knuckles, holding her
breath. Dark eyes assessed her, silently thoughtful.
“Larel.” With that, she vanished down the rows. Vhalla did not even try to pursue.
By the time the closing bells rang out across the library, Vhalla’s neck ached from
being hunched over reading for so long. She had acquired additional manuscripts on
magic to aide her on the more complex points. One was on magical Affinities, the other
on sorcerers’ history.
Retrieving her worn bookmark from the powder blue sash holding her robes closed,
Vhalla put it delicately between the pages. She returned the manuscript to its place,
stacking her references on either side, out of order. No one else would be reading in the
section of mysteries.
The next morning she trailed behind Roan as they walked through the palace. War was
still being fought in Shaldan, and they had received a shipment of books to process from a
conquered city. The guards had refused to carry the heavy crates up to the Imperial
Library. Why two of the smallest girls in the palace were sent instead was a mystery to
Vhalla.
As they descended through the outer wall, she began to wipe sweat from her brow. The
library opened into the town at one of the palace’s highest access points and was always
cooler, even in summer. The stables were further down along the capital’s main road.
“Did you know that when we first began to worship the Mother, all the Crones were

Firebearers?” Vhalla blurted out suddenly, recalling the prior day’s reading.
“What?” Roan blinked, turning. “What’s a Firebearer?”
“I...” Vhalla opened and closed her mouth like a fish, formulating words. The last thing

she wanted to do was admit to reading books on magic by explaining Firebearers.
Ignoring Roan’s question she continued on. “Well, I didn’t know this, since the Empire
invaded Cyven to spread the word of the Mother.”

“I know the history of the Empire’s expansion,” Roan laughed lightly. “It’s not that
long.”

“Right, well, I always thought that worshiping the Mother Sun came from the South,
since the Emperor says his wars are to rid the world of heathens. But it’s actually
Western. King Solaris names himself Emperor, invades Mhashan, takes their religion,
and uses it to claim Cyven and now Shaldan,” Vhalla mused aloud. “But, he’s doing it to
spread a faith—or at least he claims—that isn’t originally his.”

“All right, what are you reading?” Roan hummed in amusement.
“Don’t you think that’s interesting?” Vhalla asked, dropping all mention of sorcery.
“I do.” Her friend smiled. The expression quickly turned into a teasing grin. “I also
think someone’s been reading strange things when they should be working.”
Vhalla looked away, guilty as charged. Her friend only laughed, nudging her side. Roan
was less than a year older than Vhalla, and they had always looked out for each other.
When they met seven years ago, only Lidia and another man, who was now long gone,
worked as library apprentices. Two eleven-year-old girls hardly had any interest in
twenty-somethings; Vhalla and Roan had taken to each other out of necessity and kinship
in the written word.
Rounding a corner, they came to a small landing that overlooked the ground below.
Vhalla ignored a shadowed figure on the edge of her vision. The stables were two large
buildings built into the walls of the castle, each on either side of the main road leading up
to the palace. They stretched on for an impossibly long time, and she always felt a little
awe at all the horses, carts, and carriages they could contain. Presently, most of the stalls
stood empty due to the strain the war was putting on the Empire’s resources.
After their brief escape into the sunlight, the women returned inside and descended a
short, spiral staircase and exited out a small door onto the rocky, dusty ground. By the
smaller portal were two, massive, opulent doors that Vhalla knew were for decoration
over function. Behind them was a viewing room where the Emperor would—from time to
time—allow common folk to speak of their troubles, on those rare times when he wasn’t
off at war. She had only stood in that throne room once before when her father had first
brought her to the capital to ask the Emperor to exchange his promotion into the palace
guard for an opportunity to find an apprenticeship for his daughter.
The first six stalls belonged to the Imperial Family. All but two were empty. The
Empress’s mount, a beautiful white mare stood stoically in place. In the adjacent stall
resided a War-strider that snorted as she passed. Vhalla stopped, captured by the beast’s
eyes.
“I hear the soldiers call it the nightmare stallion.” Roan was suddenly next to her, also
studying the oversized creature as she spoke. “I think it comes—in part—from the prince’s

reputation, but I hear the beast is pretty foul toward most.”
“His reputation?” Vhalla looked quickly at a plaque on the stall door. Prince Aldrik

Solaris.
“He’s a sorcerer. It makes people uncomfortable. Magic is something that should stay

within the Tower.” Roan tucked a piece of hay-colored hair behind her ear.
Vhalla had always been jealous of Roan’s hair and generally everything else about her.

Vhalla’s hair was a dark brown mess of frizz and untamable waves; Roan’s fell in
beautiful curls. Southerners were lucky with their light skin and features. Even the Gods
were shown that way. Vhalla felt perpetually inadequate compared to Southerners and
Westerners. Those in the East had yellow-hued skin with dark brown eyes and wavy hair.
Nothing was fantastic about her.

“They say the prince’s eyes glow red with rage,” Roan murmured.
“What do you think?” Vhalla whispered, looking up at her friend.
“I don’t know, I’ve never seen a battlefield, and when I have seen the prince, his eyes
have never been red.” Roan put her hands on her hips, squinting at the horse as if it
would give her some secrets about its owner. “But I think that in every rumor there is a
small piece of truth.”
They started walking again, closing the distance to the cart section of the stables.
“Then, do you think it’s true he’s a bastard?” Vhalla asked quietly, not wanting to be
overheard by any others walking about, particularly those in black robes she suspected to
be lingering in the shaded stalls.
“I don’t know if it matters. The Emperor married our late Empress before she showed.
Who is to say whether or not she was with child before their wedding bed? But the
Emperor calls him as his legitimate heir and, since our first Lady Solaris walks the lands
of the Father now, no one can say differently.” Roan shrugged.
Vhalla nodded, recalling a book she read on the Imperial Family when she was fresh to
the capital. After conquering the West twenty-five years ago, the Emperor quickly took a
Western bride to his bed, tying loyalties with blood. But there were always whispers
surrounding the wedding to the youngest daughter of the late Western king when she had
two older, eligible sisters. Her death while giving birth to the Empire’s crown prince
within one year of the wedding had only made it worse.
Upon reaching the cart section, the young women met the Master of Horse. After
navigating through greetings and polite chatter they retrieved the books they had come
for. The crates that held the manuscripts were too heavy to carry, and the contents had to
be split into smaller boxes, the rest to be retrieved at a later date.
It took almost triple the time to cover the same distance back up the palace. At first
both girls seemed to be playing a game of denial and determination, but once Vhalla
suggested they take a breather, those breaks became something that occurred liberally
throughout the rest of their ascent.
After parting ways with Roan at the desk, Vhalla disappeared into the books to pretend
to work. She retrieved her manuscripts from mysteries without thought, carrying them
over to her window seat. It wasn’t until everything was set out that Vhalla noticed the
piece of paper folded around her bookmark. She looked around quickly, there were no

black-clad observers.
A tingle shot through her fingers as she touched the paper, prompting a sharp intake

of breath. The book fell open-faced to the floor, forgotten. Vhalla stared at the foreign,
slanted, tight script.

To Vhalla Yarl...

DEEP LINES APPEARED between Vhalla’s brows as she studied the note. The writing was
unfamiliar. Lidia’s slanted the other direction. The master’s was far spikier.
Sareem’s wasn’t half as lovely. Cadance was a child, and her writing showed it. Roan’s was
the closest, but Vhalla knew how Roan formed every capital letter from years of
penmanship classes together.

No, this wasn’t anyone from the library.

To Vhalla Yarl,
To the one who denies her heritage and seeks out danger by dismissing the tutelage and open

arms of the Tower of Sorcerers. To the foolish girl who risks her life and the lives of those around her
by walking about, Manifesting freely. To she who is so selfish that she would inconvenience her peers
by making them babysit her every movement.

It is time to stop pretending. It is time to become serious about who you are and your future as a
sorcerer. Enough time has been wasted already.

She stared numbly at the antagonistic note. With a cry she crumpled and threw it
across the window seat, watching it bounce off the opposite wall. Had it been the woman,
Larel? The note seemed nothing like her, but what did Vhalla know? What did she know
about any of them?

Vhalla ignored the crumpled parchment for the rest of the day before reluctantly
picking it up, folding it, and placing it beneath her sash as the closing bells rang. Sareem
linked arms with her, walking toward the mess hall, but Vhalla quickly excused herself,
encouraging Roan and the young man to go ahead. She wasn’t hungry and meals were the
first thing she sacrificed when her mind was full.

Alone in her room sitting in dim candlelight, Vhalla inspected the note over again.
Every word sent red heat to her cheeks. Before she could stop herself Vhalla was reaching
for quill and ink.

Of the phantoms stalking my waking hours, I don’t know which one you are, but you know nothing. I
am no sorcerer. If this is Larel, you may speak with me in person as you did last time. I am not about
to indulge someone so cowardly that they will not even sign their name. I am reading books on magic
purely for—

For what? Vhalla’s quill paused. Why was she reading the book the sorcerer had
handed her? There wasn’t any point to it. It wasn’t as if Vhalla would—or could—ever use
the knowledge it contained.

—personal intellectual improvement and learning. Go bother someone else.

She dropped her face into her palms. This wasn’t who she was. Vhalla muttered a

curse under her breath. She did not speak harshly to strangers—or even those she knew.
This was the Tower’s fault. Were it not for their persistence with wearing her down with
every waking hour, Vhalla would not be so exhausted. She crumpled the note once more
and threw it into her closet, trying to ignore it.

Her exhaustion was not helped by that same recurring dream. Every night she chased
shadows and asked hazy figures for names, only to have her words vanish into wind.

The next morning she shrugged on her apprentice robes, not even trying to run a
brush through her hair.

Grabbing her reply off the closet floor, she resolved to give this sorcerer a piece of her
mind. She hardly cared if she offended some random apprentice in the Tower of
Sorcerers. The note went in An Introduction to Sorcery, and Vhalla expected that to be
the end.

She was wrong.
The person exceeded her expectation in their stubbornness.

Yarl,
I am not stalking the halls. I do not slink or dodge. I am waiting to see if you are even worthy

of my time. I am not a phantom with little better to do than keep an eye on your wellbeing. I am the
phantom in the darkness.

However, if your last note and desperate attempts at research really are any indication, you are
not worth an iota of the ink on this page. Perhaps you should do the sorcerer community a favor and
Eradicate yourself before you embarrass us all?

That should have been the moment when she stopped writing. That should have been
the moment when Vhalla threw her hands in the air, marched to the Tower, and
demanded to be Eradicated. At least, after looking up that eradication meant the removal
of a sorcerer’s powers and not some horrible death sentence.

But Vhalla had little that she called her own. She did not have clothes, gems, or
precious metals. She had never even eaten fresh fruit other than what her mother had
grown around their farmhouse when she was a girl. Vhalla did have one precious thing
though, her knowledge. And she would be cursed before she would let an apprentice of
the Tower show her up intellectually.

To the one who declares themselves The Phantom, Perhaps I should demand to be Eradicated! I read
about the War of the Crystal Caverns; the magic unleashed there was not only capable of

warping men’s minds and bodies into abominations but it is also written that the magic was set free by
sorcerers’ meddling. It was a two-year war against monsters that kept my father from my mother and I
as she lay sick and dying. War and horror spawned and fueled by magic.

Perhaps the world should be Eradicated!

Vhalla had never been more certain that she should rid herself of whatever magic she
may possess. Everything she had always been told was right, and it only took half a book
on the history of the Empire’s most mysterious war to understand this. Magic changes

things; magic made more men die at war, magic could turn a human into an abomination.
Vhalla shoved the books back on the shelf in self-righteous anger.
Anger fought a battle with amazement when this person was stubborn enough to pen

out another reply.

Yarl,
You were reading about the War of the Crystal Caverns? Was your interest in history sparked

by your introduction to magic or your misplaced vendetta against it? In either case, allow me to
elaborate on your reading. Perhaps, in this, you may be right. There are good men among the
wicked in this world, donning the fleece of the innocent. He who set free the power that warps the
hearts, minds, and bodies of mortals was certainly wicked. The actions of this man should condemn
only him, not all who wield magic. It was also because of sorcery that the war could be ended and the
power resealed in the Crystal Caverns. Soldiers – your father – came home because the magical
warriors of the Black Legion.

Consider that when you wish to be Eradicated. Are you going to be the sorcerer who could have
saved lives but chose instead to be no one? When a sword is thrust into someone’s gut, do you blame
the sword or the knight who wields it?

When will you stop being afraid, read, and learn more about who you are?

Vhalla stared at the note. She did not know what was more agitating. This person’s
tone or the fact that they were right. Vhalla confirmed their claims by actually finishing
the book she started the day prior. The Black Legion, the war sorcerers of the Empire, had
been integral to sealing the Caverns and their dangerous magic once more.

Were those sorcerers any different from any other soldiers? No, her quill paused for a
moment, hovering over her blank page. Were sorcerers very different from the people she
called normal?

Phantom,
I’ve moved away from the introduction; I want to learn more about what sorcerers do, what magic

is. I found a book on magical Affinities. As I understand it, the early sorcerers in the West believed
that magic came from the Mother Sun in the form of her elements, so they harnessed and trained those
elements. This is why Crones were the only ones with fire Affinities, called Firebearers.

Then I began to research Groundbreakers next. It seems with their abilities to mend wounds,
charge magical salves, and create potions would be most useful.

Vhalla Yarl

As much as Vhalla did not want to, she found the words of her challenger’s notes
embedding themselves into her head. At every opportunity over the next weeks, Vhalla
withdrew to sneak down the long rows of books into the aisle of mysteries. As the pile of
notes in her closet grew, so did her awe and appreciation for her phantom’s seemingly
endless knowledge.

Yarl,

What is magic? I am afraid you will not find that answer in these books. It is a question more
suited for theologians and philosophers.

Am I to commend you for pointing out the obvious? Tell me why Groundbreakers can do these
things and maybe I shall grace you with further correspondence.

The Phantom

Vhalla vigorously researched an answer the rest of that afternoon and the day after.
How dare this person push her so far, further than even the master had ever pushed her,
to pursue new knowledge? Something about their words seeped deep into her. Pride
swelled her chest when she found something that may be considered acceptable by her
phantom. It was undeniable: she wanted to impress her Phantom.

Phantom,
While not exclusive to their Affinity or proximity to Shaldan, Groundbreakers will often

times possess magical sight. This gives them the ability to locate afflictions in the body and to
diagnose illness. But, as the writing illustrates, this is not exclusive to Groundbreakers. I could not
find anything beyond that.

Vhalla Yarl

Without realizing it, Vhalla’s days began to fall into a repetitive cycle of work, a note
from the Phantom, and sleep. She found a rhythm in managing her work to maximize the
amount of time in her window seat. The more she read, the more she realized that she
had never contemplated the ways of the magical world. She was disappointed in herself as
a scholar, and that only served to fuel her continued research. Vhalla had always
considered herself intelligent, at least above average. But could she even make that claim
if she ignored a whole field of study with a closed mind?

Yarl,
I see your tone has changed. Very well, now that you are showing some appropriate humility, I

shall indulge you. A Groundbreaker possesses an Affinity for the earth, but if they are lucky they also
possess an Affinity of the self that gives them the ability to inspect a person better than any cleric.
Affinities of the self are lesser known, and the literature is sparser as a result. However, what we do
know is that every natural Affinity bears a unique Affinity of the self, even if not all sorcerers of an
elemental Affinity possess the skills.

The Phantom

Despite herself, Vhalla began to contemplate Affinities. If she was indeed a sorcerer,
what Affinity she would have? At night, when writing by candlelight, Vhalla stared into
the flame, wondering if she could make it move and dance as the Firebearers in her books
could.

Phantom,
I wonder, do all people have an Affinity? Is every man and woman an untapped magical being?

Is everyone simply waiting to Manifest?
I have been reading about the history of magic and it seems sorcery is connected with some of our

oldest traditions. I never realized that the mirror that passes from one Head Crone to another was
intended to be a vessel for keeping the Mother’s own magic within.

The writing on the Crone’s mirror led me to find a work by a man named Karmingham. He
discussed magical transference via conductors and storage via vessels. Is anything a sorcerer touches a
magical vessel?

Sincerely, Vhalla Yarl

Some days she would reread the notes. She’d stare at that slanted, tight script and
wonder whose hand wrote it. No one ever came forward, from Tower or library staff. The
longer the game went on, the more she began to think he really was a phantom haunting
the library. She would joke with herself that he was the same man who had been lurking
in her dreams for weeks.

Vhalla Yarl,
Your tone has changed. Are you beginning to consider sorcery with something more than your

prior ill-conceived, ignorant notions?
I regret to inform you that not all people have a magical Affinity. Most are simply close-minded

Commons who fear something only because they do not know and cannot understand it. You are
special. Magic has chosen you, and it is time you accept that.

I am impressed that you picked a work like Karmingham and deciphered it. Perhaps something
has sunk in these past few weeks.

You are correct; a magical vessel can either conduct or store magic. It is impossible to have an
item that does both. But vessels are difficult to create, even for experienced Waterrunners. While
unintentional vessels are possible, they are highly uncommon because a sorcerer’s will must be very
strong to form one. More often, a vessel is created when a sorcerer leaves a magical trace in
something he or she makes. Not true power, but like an inky fingerprint upon a blank page.

The Phantom

Her dreams became a growing problem that Vhalla ignored by daylight. Every night,
she dreamed of trying to reach a figure in the darkness. The only explanation was that
those dreams were a result of the mysterious notes.

Dear Phantom,
Your praise warms me in an odd way, despite your bleak outlook on the world. I think it should

be a sorcerer’s obligation to share magic with Commons, as you seem to call non-magical people, in a
way that is easy to understand—like you have done with me.

I am not special. I have never been someone who is special. But perhaps you are right that my
tone has changed these past weeks under your tutelage.

Here is my question for you today: Why is it that Affinities seem to prefer geographical
regions?

Sincerely, Vhalla

While they continued to exchange notes through the introduction book, Vhalla’s
reading now extended far beyond that primer. There were times that she wanted to share
her notes with Roan or anyone. But then Vhalla remembered what the writing signified.
No one other than her phantom would share her enthusiasm for magic. Well, no one
other than her phantom—and other sorcerers in the Tower.

As result, in an odd way, her phantom was becoming easier to confide in and speak
openly to than her closest friends. The anonymity fit Vhalla’s inquisitive mind and she
found it easy to reveal things about herself.

Vhalla,
Call me bleak; I call you naïve and optimistic. Shall we deem it even?
I do not praise you to warm you; I praise you so that you may continue to learn. But you may

take what you will from it.
No sorcerer seems to know why Affinities favor geographical regions. It is known that the

majority of Firebearers are from the West, Waterrunners from the South, and Groundbreakers from
the North.

You think you are under my tutelage. Do you consider me your teacher?
Sincerely, The Phantom

Vhalla wasn’t sure how to respond, so she spent that night tossing and turning. If she
confessed she had begun to see the phantom as a teacher, did that make her a sorcerer?
The girl within her ran in terror at the thought. But after their correspondence began,
there was also a budding woman inside her who faced the idea of being a sorcerer with a
level head.

Dear Phantom,
Perhaps I do consider you my teacher. The last sorcerer I spoke to drugged me and kidnapped me

to the Tower. At least your worse offense is your sharp tongue and that you have not told me your
name. Who exactly are you?

You covered South, North, and West. But, what of the East?
Sincerely, Vhalla Yarl

“Vhalla!” Roan gave her a shove as they wandered toward the library from breakfast.
“Roan, sorry, what?” Vhalla mumbled, rubbing her shoulder.
“What is it with you lately?” Roan studied her up and down.
“I’m tired.” The truth of her words seeped into them.
“Yes, you are, but I have seen you tired before. This is different. You keep weird hours,
and only pick at your food during meals, if you take them at all,” Roan argued.
Vhalla shrugged.
“Even Sareem has noticed something is wrong. He asked about you; he’s noticed your
habits,” her friend muttered, her voice flat.

Vhalla continued to stare forward. Roan’s words were distant, like she was speaking
under water. Who cared about Sareem? There were more important things on her mind.
One such thing was the fact that sorcerers no longer seemed to be stalking her waking
hours.

“Don’t tell me,” Roan whispered. “You and Sareem, are you an item?”
“What?” Vhalla blinked, summoned back to life. “Sareem and I? No.”
“Really?” Roan hummed. “He clearly cares about you, and he comes from a good
family. You know his father was Norin’s ship builder.”
Vhalla nodded.
“And he’s handsome in that Western way. I always thought Southern blue eyes were
striking on Western skin...”
“Excellent,” Vhalla murmured, half-heartedly. “Really, not Sareem then?” Roan asked
again.
Why did she care so much? “No, not Sareem,” Vhalla confirmed.
“But it is a boy?” her friend teased with a laugh at the idea of Vhalla romantically
involved with someone.
Vhalla almost tripped over her own feet, earning a slow, penetrating stare.
“Is it? By the Sun, is it a boy?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Vhalla looked away.
The blonde’s hands clasped on Vhalla’s shoulders, and soon Vhalla stood in a small
side hall.
“Roan, we’re going to be late.”
“Then tell me faster so we’re not.” Roan grinned.
Vhalla focused on the freckles dotting Roan’s nose rather than the uncomfortably
eager look her friend was giving her.
“I thought you weren’t interested in boys after...”
“Narcio?” Vhalla sighed. He had owned her heart for a few months, and Vhalla had
been young enough to think it was love. She didn’t regret her time with him, but things
just hadn’t worked out. Vhalla wasn’t exactly good at relationships as she preferred to
spend more time with books than people. Still, Vhalla wished she knew what became of
the man whom she had lain with for the first time as a woman. “I’m not a Crone. Of
course I’m still interested.”
“So who, what, where, when, how?” Roan persisted.
“There isn’t much to tell,” Vhalla sighed, finally relenting. “I don’t know his name, I
don’t even know if he is a he...” she revealed softly, looking into the neighboring hallway
to see if anyone walked too close.
“You’re making no sense.” Roan loosened her grip.
“It’s complicated, but it’s special. I’ve learned a lot; he’s really smart, and witty too...in
a mean sort of way sometimes. But he is someone who seems to understand just how to
push me, and yet I can’t seem to figure out anything about him.” She stopped herself
before rambling on and giving away too much.
“But, how do you not know...?” Roan scrunched her eyebrows.
“I’ve never actually met him.” Before her friend could ask Vhalla continued, “We

communicate through notes in books. That’s all.” She turned and quickly continued down
the hallway to the welcome escape of work.

“Wait, so that’s why you’re always running off lately? And carrying your satchel?”
Roan pointed to the leather bag on Vhalla’s shoulder that she subconsciously gripped
tighter. “To write notes to your secret lover?”

“Not my lover,” she remarked sharply.
“Fine. But, Vhalla, this is weird,” Roan whispered. Before Vhalla could offer up some
kind of retort, her friend continued, “But it is kind of exciting.”
They parted ways upon arriving at the library. Vhalla quickly learned her task for the
day, completed it, and headed toward her window seat. Her hands were eager to find a
book with a note tucked within.

Dear Vhalla,
The East’s Affinity was air. They were called Windwalkers, but there has not been one for one

hundred forty-three years.
I have already told you who I am. I am the phantom in the darkness.
Sincerely, The Phantom

Later that night Vhalla fought sleep. In one hand she clutched the cryptic note, the
other ran through her long hair, snagging on tangles.

She was tired of these games. Despite the trenchant and dry nature of her phantom,
she did not want their correspondence to end. Her eyes drifted closed, no closer to a
resolution of the battle raging inside her.

She stood in the empty hallway before the torch-lit library doors. Normally she
entered at a run, but this time she walked. There was no need to run; it would all
be the same anyways. She passed through histories, down the hall of mysteries,
and a little further still to her window seat.

There she saw him, a black shadow illuminated only by the light of a single flame
hovering magically at his side. He didn’t move and, for the first time, she didn’t
speak.

In the silence Vhalla studied him. This night her dream became sharper, clearer.
By not trying to speak, the dream remained stable long enough to make out
features that normally were shadowed and fogged. The man was older than her
by about six to eight years. His shoulder-length black hair was slicked back, away
from his face and set with something that gave off a dull shine in the light.

“You are early tonight.” A deep voice hovered in the silence.

Vhalla was confused. I’m early? she wanted to ask, but only air escaped from her
mouth.

“You have to try harder,” he sighed, pretending to inspect the book he had propped
against his black-clad knees.

Try harder? Still only air passed through her moving lips.

“Tell me your name,” he commanded. What?

“Tell me your name,” he demanded again, agitation clipping his words.

Vhalla.

“Tell me your name!” He snapped his book shut and turned to her. She could
almost see the fire behind his coal-colored eyes.

Don’t slam books closed! She found her voice, and it echoed through the dream from
her to his ears.

Vhalla felt his laughter resonating through her as she woke with a start.
Sitting, she tried to control her ragged breathing. It was hopeless and something wild
took her.
She was up, on her feet, and down the hall in a flurry of motion. Vhalla didn’t even
think twice as she put her shoulder to the solid library door to push it open. A faint flicker
of light glittered off the lacquer of the shelves.
Her sudden stop almost caused her to tumble forward into the man on the window
seat. Her window seat. Her chest rose and fell with each gasping breath, and her side hurt
slightly from the sprint, but her eyes locked onto him. She stood there in silence for a
long moment, the stunning clarity of the world around her reminding her that this wasn’t
a dream.
Slowly, he put his hand on the seat and turned, piercing her with his eyes. A knowing
smirk spread across his face as he commanded her with only his stare. Minutes or hours
could have passed before he spoke.
“I knew you would come.”

REALITY HIT VHALLA like a slap across the face. Pinned to the man’s breast was a symbol
she knew well. She would know that symbol—a symbol that hovered over her every
waking hour— better than any in the world. Crafted in gold gleamed the blazing sun of the
Empire.

She stood bare-footed and in her nightgown before the crown prince, the second most
powerful man in the world. He shifted his feet to the floor, nonchalantly placing his book
on the bench. Moving his elbows to his thighs, he rested his head in his palm with one
dark eyebrow arched, as though he had already become bored.

His eyes held her to the spot with an unbroken gaze. They simply stared at each other
and, while Vhalla felt her anger slowly rising to a boil inside, his demeanor was perfectly
calm. As time dragged on, it gave birth to her nerves. Whatever had possessed her
vanished, and she realized this was a dangerous course of action. She was playing with
fire.

“Y-you, you knew I would come?” Vhalla finally stammered out. Wishing her tongue
would obey her more eloquently before a prince.

“Oh, without doubt.” The prince’s voice was soft but she could feel it reverberating
through her bones.

“How?” She blinked.
“Oh, Vhalla,” he chuckled and it made her tense. “Since when have I simply told you
things?” He stood and she looked up at him, realizing he was head and shoulders taller
than her, even taller than his brother. “I have never fed you information; you are far too
smart for that. Where is the sport?” He rounded her, peering down the bridge of his nose.
Vhalla felt like wounded prey snared in the trap of far bigger game. “Think, Vhalla. How
did I know you would come running to me?”
“I don’t know...” she whispered.
He paused behind her, leaning close to her ear. Vhalla could feel the small hairs on the
back of her neck move as he spoke.
“Vhalla.” She barely suppressed a shiver at his voice on her skin. “Show me that big
intellect that the world seems to praise you for.”
“The dreams,” she breathed deeply and closed her eyes. He leaned away from her, and
she let out a small sigh of relief.
“Very good.” It was a compliment, but it didn’t feel sincere.
“What about the dreams?” She turned to face him. A flame hovered magically over his
shoulder. Her fascination with the tiny fire was only halted by her inability to catch her
breath when she looked at him.
From this angle, the light was at her back and she could study his face properly. He
had high cheekbones and a pronounced nose, his face was narrower and more angular
than his brother’s. All of his facial structures were distinctly Western, save for Southern
pale skin that seemed paper white even in the orange glow. Nothing about him was
traditionally handsome, and for it all, he was astonishingly striking.

“Not thinking again,” the prince drawled, leaning against a bookshelf and looking
bored anew.

“I don’t know,” Vhalla said weakly.
“Of course you do.” He yawned.
“No, I don’t,” she insisted, putting her hands on her hips defiantly.
“Then I thought wrong about you. You are boring, like everyone else.” He shrugged
and turned, starting down the row of books.
Frustration and helplessness twisted her insides as she watched him go. She had no
business speaking to the crown prince.
“Wait!” Her curious mind objected to that obedient, rule-abiding voice within her.
“Wait, my prince!” She scampered after him blocking his way.
A small smirk played at the corner of his mouth. The arrogant royal had known she
was going to chase after him.
“They weren’t just dreams,” she forced herself to continue. He crossed his arms over
his chest cocking his head to the side. “I don’t know what they were, but they weren’t just
dreams.”
“Well, that is something; twenty percent I would say. Not yet passing marks.” One
corner of Prince Aldrik’s mouth curled upward.
Vhalla stood dazed; she really didn’t know anything more than that. But, she thought,
there had to be more. How had he known?
“You knew, the dreams. When I was dreaming, you knew that I was here,” she
realized.
“Very good. Now we are getting somewhere, my budding Windwalker.” His eyebrows
raised and his grin turned into a smile that Vhalla assured herself wasn’t a sneer.
“Windwalker?” she repeated dumbly.
“You have heard this word before,” he reminded her.
“Sorcerers, from the East,” Vhalla breathed. “But you said there aren’t any more, there
haven’t been for over a century.”
“There were not,” the prince corrected.
Vhalla frowned. “You said—”
He cut her off. “I am still your prince. You would do well not to forget that, apprentice.
Do not question me so.” Prince Aldrik spoke low and slow.
The expression fell from her cheeks. For the first time Vhalla felt terrified of the man.
His proximity gave off a fearsome heat that sent a chill through her. He straightened. She
grabbed her hands and wrung them together.
“Forgive me, my prince.” Vhalla lowered her eyes, unable to handle the intensity of his
gaze any longer. He turned, walking deeper into the library. “Where are you going now?”
“Stop asking questions and follow,” he ordered with a sigh.
She quickly crossed the distance between them. Vhalla looked down at her feet as she
followed behind the mysterious being that was the crown prince.
In that moment of silence, she could appreciate exactly how odd it all was. It was some
ungodly hour of the night and a library apprentice was being led by the crown prince to
some mystery location. Fear and curiosity compelled her, making her all the more

entranced with the man before her. Vhalla had every right to fear the prince and yet, after
weeks of exchanging notes, she found him less frightening than she had the Minister of
Sorcery.

She was certainly going mad.
“I would have expected you to have put it together. I had you reading books on
Affinities to push you toward a realization.” He sighed again, letting out his
disappointment. “You seemed so close, too; some of your questions made me think you
were wondering about your own potential Affinity. Surely one of your Manifestations has
given you a hint.”
“I still don’t believe I am really a sorcerer. I haven’t had any—Manifestations. Nothing
about me is magical,” Vhalla whispered, thinking back to the Minister of Sorcery.
“Reading the books, I’ve always loved reading. It was easier than talking. Like a child
playing games.”
“You are a child.” He looked her up and down with apparent disapproval. “But we are
not playing games.” She put her hands together and began to fidget. “And stop that!”
He slapped at her fingers then grabbed her chin, forcing her face up to look at his. The
jerking motion was painful, and she barely managed to suppress a whimper. Vhalla was
fairly certain he would’ve liked that even less.
“You are a sorcerer—albeit a small, untrained, helpless little slip of a sorcerer—but still
a sorcerer! Stop shrinking or you will be an embarrassment to the rest of us,” he scolded
at her shocked and helpless expression. His grasp slowly loosened, then relaxed until he
was holding her chin with only his knuckles and thumb.
“Your Affinity is air,” Prince Aldrik revealed softly, dropping his hand and turning
away from her dumb stare. There was a sudden and surprising gentleness about him, but
the moment was fleeting.
“Air?” she repeated, her face hot from his fingers. His touch had felt different than his
brother’s contact. Even months after Prince Baldair had caught her in the library, she still
remembered the feeling of his calloused fingers on the backs of her knees. Then again,
everything about the princes was night and day.
“It is like walking around with a parrot. No, I take that back, the parrot would be better
conversation.” He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“How do you know?” Vhalla was forced to ask.
“Affinities of the self,” he answered cryptically.
Vhalla did not have time to ask anything further, a gasp stopping the words in her
throat.
They had reached a wall bearing a tapestry. The prince pulled apart the molten metal
of the tapestry’s frame, heated by only his fingertips, revealing a secret passage behind.
He smirked at her expression.
“You did not think servants were the only ones with hidden ways of getting around,
did you?” He chuckled darkly and entered the narrow passageway.
Vhalla glanced over her shoulder, she could still disappear into the library. She could
go home. The light of the prince’s flame began to fade as he continued on without looking
back. She never knew exactly what beckoned her to step into the passage after him, just

before the secret door closed with a heavy clang.
“Where are we going?” Vhalla asked again.
“We are going to show you what you stubbornly refuse to believe, little parrot,” Prince

Aldrik answered, his hands folded behind his back.
“I’m not a parrot.” She frowned. “And I’m not a sorcerer.”
“Your problem—” the prince began as he started climbing up the pitch black passage.

Vhalla was left no other option than to follow closely behind the magic flame that
hovered over his shoulder as the only source of light. “—is that you rely entirely on
books.”

“What’s wrong with books?” she was forced to ask.
He stopped, turning on his heel to stare down at her. “What is wrong is that you
cannot learn how to really do things from books.” He ignored her open mouth,
continuing, “They are starting points for principle, theory, and concept. Your mind
understands, but your body does not know until you perform the act yourself. Without
action and practice, your hands will not oblige. Experience is a far greater teacher.”
“Tell me, Vhalla, have you ever made love to a man?” He closed the distance between
them as he spoke. With a single step, the crown prince was painfully close after asking
such a question. “Tell me, have you ever pleasured yourself ?”
Vhalla swallowed hard. Her brain betrayed her and she thought of clumsy
experimentations on lonely nights. The guard, Narcio, flashed upon her mind without her
command. Fleeting pain and the memories of brief satisfactions brought a hot flush of
embarrassment to her cheeks, as though she would tell anyone any of that.
“Whatever it was, I doubt it was very good,” he sneered down at her. She wanted to hit
him. “I will tell you why it was not. Because, Vhalla, you think and you watch, but you
never do. You can read all the books in this library, be wiser than the master himself
someday, and then you will die having never really done anything. You will have only ever
lived through everyone else’s experiences.”
Vhalla stared up at him, at those cold judgmental eyes that threatened to pick her
apart and lick her bones clean. Looking away only provided minimal relief. He was still
there assaulting her senses. Resisting the urge to fidget, she brought her hands together,
squeezing them tightly.
“So then, how do I do?” she asked, still avoiding his eyes. It was a potentially
dangerous question given their recent conversation.
“You follow me, and you stop ignoring what is right before your eyes.” They continued
walking up a swirling staircase into the heart of the palace. Sometimes they would curve
off as the path split before heading up again. There were no windows, no lights, no
ornamentation, no signs. She was well and truly lost.
By the time they stopped, Vhalla felt dizzy from going up all the stairs. Above them
stood a wooden door impeding their progress. The prince unbolted it and pushed open the
hatch. Like ice water running through her hair and down her shoulders, cold wind poured
down into the stairway. It forced her to blink tears from her eyes and shield her face.
“Come,” he ordered, and she obliged.
They emerged into the night air in an impossible place. The wind took the breath right

out of her lungs. They stood on a small landing, barely large enough for the two of them.
It felt like the top of the world.
They had climbed straight up through the servants’ halls, the public areas, past the

Imperial Housing, to the top of one of the golden spires that she had only ever looked
upon from far below.

Vhalla could see the castle stretching outward beneath her, its many tiers cascading
down the mountainside and into the capital. The distant, flickering lights of the city
mirrored the stars in the sky. Vhalla could see the dual peaks of the mountain, and if she
stretched her vision towards the horizon, she could see the Great Southern Forest, which
hid a road that could take her home.

“What do you think?” He had moved behind her. Even at such close proximity she
could barely decipher his words through the howling wind.

“It’s amazing,” she breathed.
“I have heard it said that the Windwalkers were the children of the sky.”
His words barely registered as she looked upwards at the heavens above. It was an
engrossing scene, as though she was at the very place where the earth and sky met. Vhalla
took a tiny step forward, sweeping her gaze back to the glittering city below.
Perhaps it was her enchantment with the wonder surrounding her. Or perhaps it had
been the wind filling her ears. Whichever, it masked his last footsteps. The prince placed
his hands lightly upon her shoulders.
“Trust me,” he demanded, his lips barely brushed over her ear.
Vhalla did not even have a moment to turn her head before he pushed her effortlessly
into the empty air beyond.

SHE PLUMMETED THROUGH the air in a surreal trance. Her shoulder hitting the golden rooftop
jarred her back to life with a sickening crunch. Vhalla half tumbled, half bounced
small distances down the slope of the roof, desperately trying to grab a handhold. But the
pitch was too steep, and each desperate grab resulted only in a fingernail being pulled
back or ripped off. Soon there were no more golden shingles and there was nothing left to
reach.

Vhalla had heard stories of one’s life flashing before one’s eyes in the moments before
death, but all she saw was the round moon overhead, staring down at her. As the wind
whipped around her body she began to twist in the empty space. The celestial body
departed her field of vision as she spun head over heels. It was replaced by the ground
rushing to meet her.

She was going to die.
She opened her mouth to scream but the force of the wind pulled her voice from her,
flooding her lungs.
She tried to turn herself to fall toward a nearby balcony, a landing, or even a decorative
molding. Her body slammed against the castle wall, succeeding only in knocking all the
air from her lungs with a cry of agony. Then she was falling again. Her small frame
smashed against an arch before tumbling back into the night sky. She searched for a stone
that would catch her, but every attempt tossed her back to her death.
Her vision blurred and blood smeared her hands. She held out her arms, the ground
was close now. She could only see the sky above but she knew it had to be over soon.
Vhalla groped at the empty air, clinging to nothing but the wind slipping through her
fingers.
An explosion rang out through her—and she sat upright, jolted awake.
Vhalla instantly regretted opening her eyes. The world looked hazy, both too bright
and too dark; the colors twisted, and her eyes had trouble focusing. She turned quickly,
retching over the side of the bed. Hot bile splattered on the vaguely familiar floor. The
process of vomiting caused her abdomen to object to the tightening spasms, and she let
out an agonizing cry as she fell back onto the bed in a heap.
Her entire body felt wrong. It felt as though someone stole her soul from her old body
and placed it in a different one. Nothing matched up, nothing obliged in the way it should,
and everything worked in ways it shouldn’t. Her brain felt scrambled, and under the
fingers clutching her abdomen she felt the sickening angles of broken ribs. She likely
shouldn’t be lying on her side but it hurt if she moved, and it hurt if she didn’t. So she
only endured her current position over risking any change.
Through the sliver of light between her eyelids, Vhalla tried to orient herself. The first
indication she should panic was the window; it was three times larger than anything she
had ever seen before in the apprentices’ and servants’ halls. When her eyes found the
dragon molding around the top of the room, Vhalla tried to scramble out of bed, making
unreasonable demands of a broken body.

Muffled voices and quick steps approached on the other side of the door before it
burst open for two figures frantically approaching her. The older man she recognized
instantly—the Minister of Sorcery. But the woman, she was a surprise. Vhalla blinked at
the fuzzy shapes of the people.

“Larel?” Even her own voice sounded strange to Vhalla’s ears, and she struggled not to
retch again. The dark-haired woman departed quickly from the room. Vhalla grimaced.
The woman should be ashamed her role in Vhalla’s current state. If it wasn’t for Larel
thrusting that book in her hands, she would have never met the prince.

“Don’t talk,” the minister demanded sternly. Vhalla cracked her eyes open against her
better judgment. His hand ran between her forehead and her shoulder. Vhalla did not
have the strength or will to fight against his touch as she would have wanted.

The minister rolled her onto her back, and Vhalla’s body objected painfully. With a
scream she tried to push him away. This man, his world of magic, and all the sorcerers
within were nothing but pain.

“Vhalla.” She stilled at the sound of her name in his mouth. “You need to believe me
now. I am here to help you.” The minister’s voice was gentle, more than it had any right to
be.

“You have to get down—and keep down—some bone regrowth this time.”
This time? Vhalla was so confused and so tired, she closed her eyes. Sleep was much
easier she realized. All this could go away if she closed her eyes and pretended to no
longer exist.
“No, Vhalla stay here.”
“How...?” She could barely manage one syllable words, but he seemed to understand.
“I said don’t talk.” He shot her a cold gray glare. “Prince Aldrik brought you here after
you awakened.”
She shook her head. Awakened?
Vhalla heard a commotion behind him and struggled to open her eyes again. Larel had
returned, apparently not ashamed in the slightest, with a bucket and mop. It was actually
Vhalla who felt shamed when the woman began to clean up her spew that puddled on the
floor.
“Larel, the blue vial,” Minister Victor demanded. She nodded obediently and
scampered from the room. Vhalla permitted herself darkness again. “No, Vhalla, you have
to stay awake now.” The man shook her shoulders slightly, where only a small touch sent
waves of pain down to her toes. She whimpered in protest. “Vhalla.” His voice was sharp—
demanding, and the stern tone reminded her just enough of another man’s voice that she
wanted to throw up all over again.
But it did the trick, and Vhalla obliged him, opening her eyes slightly. She had tunnel
vision and didn’t even see the female sorcerer passing the vial to the man silently. He
turned and slipped his arm under Vhalla’s shoulders, propping her up. Vhalla shook her
head violently, remembering the last time she sat. Her brain only rattled around in her
skull, threatening to make the blackness at the edge of her eyes all-consuming.
“Stop, stop, stop,” the minister ordered, holding her close to him with one arm and
pressing the vial to her mouth with the other. She didn’t want to drink, she wanted to

sleep. However, his insistence yielded her eventual surrender, and Vhalla gulped down
the syrupy liquid with a small cough. It flowed through her like fire and she heard
someone screaming as the minister threw the vial to the floor with a shattering noise and
took her in his full embrace. It wasn’t until she was cognizant of thrashing against the
firm arms holding her that she realized the screaming was coming from her own mouth.

The agonizing cries gave way to eventual sobs as the burning slowly passed and she
went limp, relying entirely on the support of the man whom she wanted to hate. Vhalla
cast aside all decency and she simply wept against his chest. Somewhere he was talking;
she could hear and feel it.

“—too susceptible to magic now. We tried—help you be more comfortable. But your—
magical passages are too—and broken to—handle any more being—on you.” She hated
magic, her original opinion was reaffirmed anew as her mind began to level from the
potion. “Vhalla -ten, you had two broken ribs - - left side and the right side of your -cage
was shattered. Your hands are a wreck. Your left shoulder was shattered, and your right
was dislocated. Your spine was all out of alignment, and your hips were fractured along
with one of your legs.” Vhalla laughed into his chest with an insane rasp.

“You will be fine,” he assured her gently. Now he was the insane one. “But since we are
healing almost exclusively with non-magical clerical potions and salves, it’ll take some
time.” The Western woman had shifted Vhalla’s pillows so she could sit in a more upright
position and the man gently returned her to them, taking a green bottle. “This one is next;
it shouldn’t hurt.”

True to his word the chalky liquid went through her cracked lips and caused no
immediate discernible change in her overall state.

“Water,” she rasped softly and he nodded. He poured a small cup from a clay pitcher
on the bedside table. The minister brought this to her lips also and held it there so she
could take a few long gulps.

“This is not how I wanted to meet you next. Believe me, Vhalla,” he started, placing the
cup back and taking a third strangely shaped vial from the silent woman. “I wanted to give
you time to come to terms with what is happening. I have seen people run if forced, and I
thought you would benefit from distance. When I found out the prince had taken an
interest in you, I felt I had little to worry about.”

Vhalla rasped in bitter laughter. She had begun to think that perhaps magic would not
be so frightening after all his notes. It was ironic that the man holding her shattered form
was the man she should have trusted all along.

“Prince Aldrik didn’t know how to tend to your current...condition,” Minister Victor bit
out the last word before pausing. “So he brought you to me three days ago.”

Vhalla coughed on the last sip of liquid in the vial that was pressed to her mouth.
“Three...days?” she managed, rather proud that two words could pass her lips.

Victor nodded. “I wasn’t sure if you were going to make it. The second morning we
forced you to sleep as you were thrashing and screaming too much to keep you awake,”
Victor recounted dutifully. Vhalla’s mind was overloaded and the horrors hardly
registered anymore. “But putting you to sleep disrupted the healing of your magical
Channels when you kept reliving your awakening.”

“Awakening?” she asked.
“Awakening is when a sorcerer’s powers first Manifest in full.” He studied Vhalla for a
moment before adding somewhat apologetically, “It’s normally a bit gentler.”
Larel came in with yet a fourth vial, and Vhalla shook her head. She didn’t think her
shrunken stomach and battered body could handle anymore. After delivering the potion,
the woman retrieved the bucket and mop, vanishing into the outer rooms.
“This is the last one for now,” the minister promised, so Vhalla relented. The world
seemed to slowly stabilize, though Vhalla still felt like she would rather be asleep than
awake. “Good,” he encouraged as she finished the last drop. “Now please, try to keep
those down; no sudden movements.”
Vhalla gave a small nod. “May I sleep now?” she asked weakly.
He shook his head, which earned him a whimper. “Almost,” Victor assured her. “I have
one more thing to try. I hope that it will make you feel better.”
She was helpless to object with anything more than a shake of her head so she
relented without fuss. If these people had planned on killing her, they wouldn’t be
exhausting themselves to keep her alive.
Victor left the room for a moment. He returned with a wooden case that he held with
great care. Sitting, he placed it in his lap and popped open the latch. Within it were many
stones of different shapes and colors. Vhalla wondered if it was simply the strangeness to
her vision or if the stones actually shined and glittered unnaturally, as though a cosmos
of stars swirled within. After a moment’s consideration he pulled one of the shining rocks
and placed it on her forehead. She was too tired to feel silly and, out of necessity, already
trusted him completely. He took a similar one and placed it on her stomach.
Vhalla’s eyes snapped open. The world was suddenly clear again. Her vision shifted
back into focus, her ears heard a beautiful stillness.
“Don’t talk,” he reminded her, “but I take it that helped a bit.” She hoped the flick of
her eyes was enough of an acknowledgement. “I am going to leave those there for a little,
so try not to move much. Not that you should be moving anyways.” As if she could. “And
yes, you can now sleep.”
Vhalla closed her eyes with a small sigh and felt her body relax a fraction before
slipping back into the welcoming darkness.
It was night the next time Vhalla woke. Her room was empty save for a small bowl of
fruit, a loaf of bread, and a series of vials on the table next to her. She slowly eased herself
into a seated position. The stones had been removed, but her vision seemed to be holding
steady. The world shifted a little, but her stomach remained settled—she considered it a
small victory. Vhalla assessed the food cautiously. Bread and fruit would hurt more than
bile coming up.
Her hand paused midair so she could assess the bruises and scratches that marred her
skin. Even the moonlight made her feel uneasy as she involuntarily recalled the last time
she had seen the celestial body. Vhalla retrieved one of the small red fruits and brought it
back into her lap, a strawberry. She smiled faintly.
Long ago her mother had planted some strawberry shrubs near their home. Every year
they had eaten the few sweet berries the plants yielded. Despite their love of the fruit,

neither Vhalla nor her father seemed to have the energy to maintain the plants after her
mother died from Autumn Fever. She hadn’t eaten a strawberry since then. Even if they
had been available to apprentices, Vhalla didn’t know if she would have been emotionally
willing.

A few stray tears dripped into her palms as she looked down at the tiny fruit. She was
so far from home—felt so small and broken. Her body was foreign to her, to the point that
her mind didn’t even recognize it. She had something in her, magic that she had never
known and didn’t think she wanted.

She wasn’t supposed to have to deal with this. She was a library apprentice, no one—
less than. Exhaustion consumed all of her emotions, and she couldn’t even summon
anger. She simply wanted to feel normal again, whatever that meant now.

Choking down a sob, Vhalla took a bite of the fruit, chewing thoughtfully. That was
when she heard the muffled discussion through the door to the room beyond. Invisible
beetles crawled beneath her skin. The resonance of one voice was unmistakable, causing
Vhalla to nearly gag on the fruit.

Staring down the door, she debated if she had the strength, mentally or physically, to
know what was being said. On legs that could barely support her, Vhalla stumbled over to
the door to lean against it. Ear pressed to the wood, she could make out the two male
voices.

“Really, Aldrik, what were you thinking?” the minister asked.
“I do not have to explain myself to you, minister,” the prince sneered.
“You could have killed her.” The Minister Victor voiced Vhalla’s fears.
“I could not have killed her,” the prince retorted, utterly confident.
Vhalla knew that the prince was rumored to have a silver tongue. But there was a
peculiar sort of agitation to his voice, as though he was truly offended the minister would
even suggest it.
“How did you know?” the minister demanded. “She had hardly Manifested more than
trace magic on those notes. There was no way you could have known her Affinity.”
“Then you underestimate my prowess.” Vhalla could hear the click of boots across the
floor as the prince paced the room.
“Certainly,” the minister remarked with bold sarcasm. “I only ask because I have this
wild idea that you may have some insights to her that you are neglecting to share, my
prince.”
“Victor,” Prince Aldrik sighed dramatically. “You think I would lower myself to trouble
with a plain commoner like her?”
“You troubled yourself enough to write her notes,” the minister pointed out.
Vhalla hadn’t thought about it, but it was strange that the crown prince had sent notes
to an apprentice.
“She is the first Windwalker in almost one hundred fifty years. Of course I would
trouble myself.” His tone had turned cold and calculating.
“Well, the next time we have a new Manifesting sorcerer, I will be sure to ask you to
assist, what with your mysterious powers of deduction on Affinities,” the minister
commented dryly. There was a long silence, indicating the prince was finished indulging

the minster on this matter. “However you knew, the fact remains she is a Windwalker. I
confirmed it.”

“You felt the need to confirm it when she survived a fall from the palace spires?”
Vhalla could almost see Prince Aldrik rolling his eyes with his tone alone.
“I used crystals upon her,” the minister continued, ignoring the prince’s sarcasm.
“You what?”
Was that worry that Vhalla heard in Prince Aldrik’s voice? She thought back to the
shimmering stones that Minister Victor placed upon her forehead and stomach. Those
were crystals? They couldn’t possibly be the same as the taint-causing stones from the
War of the Crystal Caverns. They had helped her, not hurt her.
“We should tell the Emperor.” Minister Victor seemed to be well versed at overlooking
choice comments from the prince. “He will want to know. He could use her in the war.”
Vhalla’s heart began to race. The idea of her at war was ludicrous. She had never even
hit a person in play or sport.
“No.” As if the prince picked up on her panic, he squelched the idea sharply. “I will
deal with my father, Victor. I do not want to catch wind of you breathing a single word to
the Emperor about her.”
“Very well,” the minister sighed. “Aldrik, I can only theorize on what your grand plan
is for the girl, given our histories. I know what we read, what we studied—”
“Victor,” the prince growled dangerously.
“I remember wishing we had someone like her,” the minister continued, ignoring the
warning tone. What did these people want with her? “I would be false if I claim to have
not had similar ideas cross my mind already. But she will need to be trained first. We will
need—”
“She is not your concern,” Prince Aldrik snapped. “I will oversee her training.”
Vhalla rested her forehead against the door, reminding herself to breathe. It did not
seem like she would escape the prince anytime soon.
“Larel will be her mentor, and she will report to me. I thank you, minister, for keeping
your distance.”
Her heart was racing, and the adrenaline replaced the pain. How had he known her
Affinity? Why had the prince decided out of all the sorcerers that he had control over, she
would be the one he would make his pet? Vhalla’s face twisted in agony. She should be
Eradicated, certainly that was still an option.
“Now, if you will excuse me, I would like to check on her.” The prince’s footsteps
neared the door.
“My prince, please let her rest.” Vhalla’s opinion of the Minister of Sorcery was
steadily improving.
But nothing stopped the prince if he wanted something, and Vhalla took a step away
from the door, glancing around frantically. Once more she was reminded how trapped this
room made her feel. She had yet to stumble back to the bed when the door opened.
Dark eyes met hers, and Vhalla looked up uncertainly, caught in a whirlwind of
apprehension and fear. Would he know that she had been eavesdropping? She couldn’t
imagine the prince would take kindly to it.

“You’re awake.” He breathed the words and his eyes softened with what looked like
relief. Though Vhalla was certain she was mistaken.

“I am.” She nodded, her voice no longer sounded wrong.
“I’m glad,” he said softly.
Vhalla squinted up at him, not caring for how bold it was. “You, you’re glad?” Anger
stammered her words as she glared at the tall man dressed all in black.
“I am, Vhalla—”
The prince took a step toward her, and Vhalla took a step back.
“No,” she shook her head. “No, don’t come near me. Never come near me again.”
Vhalla’s voice was rougher than she had ever heard it before. She didn’t care that he was
the prince, and she didn’t care that the minister stood as an observer.
“Vhalla,” The prince had the audacity to have the start of a smile on his face. Who did
he think she was? Some ignorant child? “This is not a time for anger; we should
celebrate.”
“You—pushed—me—off—a—roof.” Vhalla wished she had a more dramatic word for
roof because it didn’t seem to quite cut to the truth of the matter.
He laughed.
Vhalla had never struck someone before, but he was making an appealing case.
“You are fine. See how quickly you are healing now? You will be better than fine soon.
I will even teach you myself.” He outright smiled, as though he was bestowing some great
honor upon her.
But Vhalla did not smile. She took another step away and swayed as the world was
suddenly unstable. She had been on her feet for too long.
Prince Aldrik was there in a moment, his hands on her upper arms for support. “Stop
this foolishness,” he said, his deep voice gentle. “You know you should not be standing.
Let me help you back to bed.” His sudden kindness made her want to scream.
“Don’t touch me,” she whispered.
“Vhalla—” The lightness was beginning to slip from his face.
“Do. Not. Touch. Me!” she cried, pushing his hands off and taking a step back. Vhalla
stumbled, her world tilted, but her feet held onto the floor with all the force of her rage.
“You threw me off a roof !” Her voice had risen to a near shrill. “You didn’t tell me! You
didn’t warn me!”
“If I warned you, it would not have worked. If I had warned you, then you would not
have done it.” He crossed his arms on his chest.
“Of course I wouldn’t have!” She threw her arms out and swayed dangerously again,
but regained her balance. “I trusted you to be my teacher! I did not trust anyone else, but
I trusted you as my prince! I trusted you because you asked!” The confession caught in
her throat as she choked it out. Vhalla wasn’t sure if she only imagined his eyes widening
by a fraction before darkening.
“And you were right to; I awoke you to something great.” His voice grew colder.
“I didn’t want this.” She looked down at her bruised and broken form.
“You asked for this!” he snapped.
“My prince, please, this isn’t...” The minister saw the conversation devolving before his

eyes, and he took a step in from the doorframe.
“I didn’t ask for this! I don’t know what I wanted but it wasn’t this!” Her rage kept in

the tears, and in that moment she swore he would not see her cry. “I am confused. I am
broken—”

“You will heal, better than you were before,” Prince Aldrik assured her.
“I was fine before,” Vhalla protested.
“You were boring. You were worse than boring. You were normal and content. I gave
you a chance for greatness.” He looked at her harshly.
“What would’ve happened if I hadn’t been a Windwalker?” Her words quieted the air.
“I will not indulge such nonsense.” He brushed off the question.
“Do not toy with me anymore,” she spoke slowly. “What would have happened?”
Vhalla asked again.
He stared at her a long moment. “If things were not as they are and you were not a
Windwalker, then you would have fallen to your death.” Prince Aldrik shrugged as though
the thought had crossed his mind, and he couldn’t have been troubled to care.
“You bastard.” The words were out before she even had time to consider them, but
after spoken she hardly regretted them.
“What did you say?” Prince Aldrik snarled.
“You, my prince,” she sneered in kind. “You are a self-centered, egotistical, self-
absorbed, narrow-sighted, vain, self-important,” she felt her anger finally reach its boiling
point, “conceited bastard!” Vhalla cried out.
The window next to them shattered, flooding the room with a gale peppered with
shards of glass. She hardly seemed to notice as the minister braced himself against the
wind. The prince stood motionless, staring at her darkly from behind a thin screen of
flame that broke the wind and protected him from the shattered glass.
“Calm down,” he growled.
“You can’t tell me what to do anymore!” she screamed.
“I can tell you whatever I want. I am your prince!” he shouted and the thin fire that
protected him lashed outward.
Vhalla raised her hands to shield herself from the flame. The fire passed over her
palms and face as little more than heat—but it broke her concentration. The wind died
down and, with it, Vhalla collapsed to the floor, her energy spent.
The prince looked down at her, a stone mask across his features, judgment burning in
his eyes. “Stay there,” he spoke slowly. “Stay on the floor where you belong. You are like a
pathetic little worm who only wants to sit in the dirt when I was prepared to give you a
chance to grow wings and fly.”
“My prince,” the minister said firmly, but was easily ignored.
“I chose you, and you threw it away,” Prince Aldrik snarled.
Vhalla stared up at him. This was the prince she had expected. Not the mysterious
intellectual phantom, and certainly not the awkwardly kind man who had first entered
her room.
“So stay there, with the filth you so happily chose.”
He stormed out of the room. Vhalla’s face stung, and she swallowed hard. The

minister hovered uncomfortably.
“Leave, please,” she whispered. Ignoring her wishes, the minister knelt by her side.

“Don’t,” she said, staring at the shattered glass from the window. “Just...leave.” She had
no right to command him but there was nothing in her left to care about that fact.

“Vhalla,” he said softly.
It was too kind for what she felt. She wanted nothing more than for him to scream at
her and leave too. Or throw her out the window and finish what the prince had started.
“Go,” she demanded. He stayed. “I said leave!”
Finally, with an audible sigh, the minister stood and left.
Vhalla never heard his footsteps walking away from her door. She knew that he stood
right outside as she collapsed among the broken glass and cried out, sobbing, until she
had nothing left to feel and the darkness took her again.

VHALLA TWITCHED HER fingers. There was a bug on her that was intent on disturbing her
sleep. When it refused to go away, she twisted in the opposite direction; it
frustratingly followed her hand. Almost fully awake, she tried to withdraw and heard a
low shhh-ing noise come from the bedside.

Cracking her eyes open, she realized that she was back in the bed. It irked her that
they had lifted her off the floor and placed her back among the soft pillows and blankets.
She would’ve rather spent the night on the ground. Thinking of what she said to the
prince’s face, she groaned.

“Does it hurt?” a faint voice whispered next to her.
Vhalla turned back. It was the Western woman, Larel. She was changing the bandages
on Vhalla’s arm.
“What do you care?” Vhalla remembered what the prince had said. Larel was to spy on
her and report to him. The Westerner before her fraternized with the enemy.
“I care very much,” Larel replied easily. “Does it hurt?”
“Why?” Vhalla continued to ignore her question. Everything hurt. But she wasn’t
certain what was physical and what was emotional.
“Because you are to be my protégé.” The sorceress had a flat way of talking, thick with
a Western accent.
“I don’t want to be your protégé.” Vhalla looked away in childish protest.
“Very well,” the woman said lightly. “We can change that after you’re healed.”
“What?” She turned her head back slowly to the dark-haired woman. The movement
was accompanied by a deep ache in her shoulders.
“After you’ve healed, you’ll meet others in the Tower,” Larel explained. “If you do not
wish for me to mentor you, then you can have your pick of a new mentor, someone you
are more comfortable with.”
Vhalla stared at the bruises and scratches on her flesh. It was true, she was a mess.
Underneath the bandages her skin was a grotesque rainbow of red, yellow, purple, and
blue. Wounds were so prevalent she could not even catch sight of the natural yellow tint
of her skin.
“Have you done this every night?” Vhalla finally asked. The woman had a gentle hand.
“Almost.” She said it as though it was nothing.
Despite herself Vhalla cringed. She didn’t care about this sorceress, she told herself.
But the idea that someone had been changing her soiled clothes and tending to her needs
naturally put guilt in her mind.
“I’m sorry to be a burden,” Vhalla whispered. Magic had only made her a more
pathetic being thus far. A soft breeze brought her eyes to the window; the glass had not
been replaced and the crisp smell of winter was beginning to change the night air.
Summer was gone, and fall was already upon them.
“Prince Aldrik told us not to fix it.” Larel missed little. Vhalla winced at his name. “Are
you cold? I could bring you another blanket.”

“It’s fine.” Vhalla was cold, she was always cold. But her lingering pride would not
allow her to be more of a burden. “I guess he’s going to make my life as uncomfortable as
he can.”

“If the prince wanted to make you uncomfortable he could, and would, do far more
than not replace a window,” Larel pointed out.

It was a truth Vhalla did not want to believe. To believe it meant the woman was right.
The fact that Vhalla was still in bed receiving treatment meant the prince did not want her
to be uncomfortable, even after what she said.

“What relationship do you and the prince have?” Vhalla asked boldly. The prince had
appointed this woman as her mentor. Larel was the one who gave Vhalla the book that
the prince left his notes within.

Her gold-ringed hazel eyes met Larel’s dark ones. Vhalla may be a bad liar but that
wouldn’t stop her from looking for a lie in others.

When Larel spoke there was no sign of hesitation or fear. “We were apprentices in the
Tower together,” Larel said simply, returning to rubbing salve on Vhalla’s skin.

“The prince was an apprentice?” Vhalla blinked. She expected apprenticeship to be
something that was below royalty.

“How else would he have learned?” Larel had a small grin. “I know how he seems. But
he’s not truly malicious, not normally, and almost never to people like us.”

“People like us?” Vhalla repeated doubtfully.
“Sorcerers.” Sweeping dark bangs across her forehead, the woman glanced up.
Of course, Vhalla thought. She was one of them now, and there really was no more
denying it. The fall should’ve killed her, and if the prince hadn’t intervened, something
did.
“Magical people are often feared by Commons. Even you feared us,” Larel said
thoughtfully.
Vhalla could only nod. She was conflicted over the woman’s use of past tense with
regards to her fear. Though, at this exact moment, Vhalla did not feel afraid. She felt sad.
Something in her was different. Roan, Sareem, Master Mohned, they wouldn’t
understand, even if she tried explaining.
“The prince knows this,” Larel continued. “He knows how hard it is, better than most.
He’s had more than his fair share.”
“So now I’m supposed to feel sorry for him?” Vhalla spat, becoming far more
venomous than she would’ve wanted.
Larel stopped and looked up at Vhalla strangely for a long while. “Yes.” She returned to
her work, and Vhalla felt her jaw go slack. “And he should feel sorry for what he put you
through,” Larel added faintly. “Awakenings can be scary, but they shouldn’t hurt, at least
never this bad. I think, I think he was caught up in the promise of what you are.”
“What I am?” Vhalla mused, remembering the unexpected conversation she had
overheard. “You mean a Windwalker?”
Larel nodded. “I don’t think you understand, Vhalla. You are the first Windwalker in
generations. Many theorists have gone so far as to postulate that the East is magically dry.
That the source of magic for the Windwalkers had been destroyed with no one connected

to the Channel for so long.” Larel picked up a bottle of the salve and worked it across
Vhalla’s still open wounds. “You fly—no pun intended—in the face of everything people
have been saying for well over a century.”

Vhalla wanted to feel special. She wanted to feel important. She wanted to feel she was
special and important to the crown prince, of all people. But she only felt like an object.
She was jarred out of her destructive cycle of thought when Larel placed salve into a
particularly angry gash.

“Sorry, I should’ve warned you.” The woman continued on with her work.
“I’m sorry you have to do this,” Vhalla replied. On the scale of sorcerers, Larel had
wronged Vhalla the least, and she seemed to be cleaning up the mess of everyone else.
“I don’t mind.” She began padding a few wounds with cloth scraps before starting on
the clean dressings. “Yes, you have been more work than most of my peers’ Awoken
apprentices. But I think your story is already far more profound than most of us can ever
hope for.”
She paused to smile, and Vhalla was taken aback by the woman’s features. She was
stunning when she smiled. The straight black hair framed the warm visage perfectly as it
curved around her face. She had dark brown eyes, almost black, and Vhalla had to look
away before she was reminded of another set of slightly darker Western eyes.
“So what happens next?” It seemed a natural question. Vhalla needed to start
approaching things logically. Her emotions had been running wild for far too long, and it
had gotten her nowhere.
“Once you are Awoken, there are only two options. Your powers will continue to
Manifest. You’ve already seen how they can be tied to your emotions when it’s this fresh.”
Vhalla looked back to the window, realizing for the first time what had really transpired.
“So you must learn to control your powers or Eradicate them. I likely shouldn’t say, but
the minister is planning to offer you a black robe.”
“But I am a library apprentice,” Vhalla said weakly, feeling homesick.
“Things change.” The woman shrugged. “But it will be your choice. The minister will
not force it on you.”
“I doubt that,” Vhalla mumbled. She wasn’t sure if the sorcerers of the tower knew
how to do anything without force. “What if I chose to be Eradicated?”
She had read about the process of exhausting a sorcerers magic to block their
Channels to power. While she didn’t understand it fully, it didn’t sound painful as
described in the library book. It couldn’t be any more painful than the agony she was
already in.
“I would urge you to reconsider.” When Vhalla glared at the woman, Larel added, “But
I think it should be your choice.” Larel sat back, reorganizing her supplies.
Vhalla stared blankly out the window, wishing the stars could tell her what needed to
be done.
“Prince Aldrik,” Larel started gently, seeing Vhalla visibly flinch at the mention of his
name. “He told me that you were very bright. That you were surprisingly smart for an
apprentice.”
“He would phrase it like that, a compliment in an insult,” Vhalla remarked dryly.

“He meant it,” Larel assured her. “I believe it to be true as well.” Vhalla looked
uncertainly at the woman as she stood. “Don’t make this choice without putting that
intellect to use. If you have questions, you can ask me or any other sorcerer.”

There was a seed of guilt in her stomach as Vhalla looked up at the woman. She had
been kind to her. Vhalla picked at the seams on her blanket. “Thank you,” Vhalla
mumbled. “I don’t think I would be as well as I am now without your help,” she added
earnestly.

“You are welcome,” Larel accepted the gratitude. “Now rest. When you feel well
enough, there is a library here in the Tower that you can use.”

The woman smiled at Vhalla’s expression when she mentioned the library. But the
sorcerer said nothing more and departed. With a soft sigh Vhalla shifted the pillows and
laid back.

As much as Vhalla wanted to, she couldn’t muster any anger toward Larel. The woman
had been too kind to her for that. Plus, it was nice to have someone speak openly and
honestly to her about these matters. Vhalla’s best guess was that the Westerner didn’t
seem to be mindlessly following Victor’s or the prince’s orders.

As much as Vhalla wanted to ignore them, Larel’s words had struck something within
her. Apply her intellect to the world before her. Vhalla worried about what would happen
if she did. Sighing again, Vhalla allowed her wounded body to relax and her eyes to droop
closed. There was always the morning to make life-changing decisions.

But the morning came and went, and Vhalla was no closer to deciding how she felt
about anything. The pain had mostly subsided and with it her rage at the situation. She
was still sore at a certain prince, but she no longer felt the need to hit things. Around
lunch, Vhalla decided it was time to get out of the room she had occupied for days on end.

When she stood, the world stayed exactly where it should be. Other than a general dull
ache, there was no pain. She tried a circle around the small space; when she didn’t retch,
she considered it a success. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door that led out into
the other room.

Vhalla was surprised to see that it was vacant. Larel, the minister, and—most
thankfully—the prince were nowhere to be found. Remembering what Larel had told her
about a library, Vhalla crept through the space toward the second door.

Vhalla observed the hall. To the left it sloped up; to the right, down. At frequent
intervals hung the glass bulbs with flame inside, casting the path in a warm glow. She
stared at the sculptures that lined the walls at random intervals.

It was artwork.
She closely inspected the carved stone. Apprentices and servants didn’t display
artwork in their halls. Were there other noble members of the Court beyond the
minister?
The reliefs told stories Vhalla had known since she was a child. Most of them were
religious in reference, surrounding the Father. Vhalla saw a man grasping a dragon’s
head, forcing it to eat its own tail, the creation of the moon. The Father protected his
lover’s world from the chaos of the realms beyond.
Vhalla instinctively started upward, but when she remembered her last interaction